Trans-Neptunian Object #1

Album: Cherry Marmalade (2002)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • After Letters To Cleo singer Kay Hanley gave birth to her daughter in 1999, she headed into the studio to record her first solo album, Cherry Marmalade. Around this time, Pluto's status as the ninth planet from the sun was being called into question, and it was eventually reclassified as a trans-Neptunian object. The album's closing track connects Pluto's plight with Hanley's otherworldly devotion to her baby. The singer told Songfacts in 2022:

    "I was obsessed at the time with the idea that Pluto had been downgraded from a planet to a trans-Neptunian object. I was really upset about that. I don't know why I decided to make the connection between that and this beautiful creature that I got to hang out with and wipe her butt every day and clean spit up off my shoulders. I was always covered in her activities... it was just the sort of wondering... who are you? And making promises to her that I'd take care of her always."
  • Songwriting was always a collaborative process in Letters To Cleo, so it was a different experience for Hanley to write by herself (or with her then-husband, Cleo guitarist Michael Eisenstein) on Cherry Marmalade. Writing solo also yielded quite different results.

    "Every song I write, I know exactly what was going on in that moment when I wrote it and why I wrote it," she told Songfacts. "Even though, especially in Cleo, most of my songs were not very literal. The songs on Cherry Marmalade were. That's one of the things that was unusual, was writing such linear stories. I had never really done that before.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Director Paul Rachman on "Hunger Strike," "Man in the Box," Kiss

Director Paul Rachman on "Hunger Strike," "Man in the Box," KissSong Writing

After cutting his teeth on hardcore punk videos, Paul defined the grunge look with his work on "Hunger Strike" and "Man in the Box."

Shawn Mullins

Shawn MullinsSongwriter Interviews

"Lullaby" singer Shawn Mullins on "Beautiful Wreck," beating the Devil, and his writing credit on the Zac Brown Band song "Toes."

16 Songs With a Heartbeat

16 Songs With a HeartbeatSong Writing

We've heard of artists putting their hearts into their music, but some take it literally.

Fire On The Stage

Fire On The StageSong Writing

When you have a song called "Fire," it's tempting to set one - these guys did.

Female Singers Of The 90s

Female Singers Of The 90sMusic Quiz

The ladies who ruled the '90s in this quiz.

AC/DC

AC/DCFact or Fiction

Does Angus really drink himself silly? Did their name come from a sewing machine? See if you can spot the real stories about AC/DC.