Just Go

Album: Dysfunction (1999)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Staind lead singer Aaron Lewis reveals his insecurities on "Just Go," an early track from the band. It's pretty intense:

    Such a cancer on the face of everything that's beautiful
    I wish that this would just go


    Around this time, Lewis was using music as therapy, dealing with all his pent-up traumas that were very real. Many fans connected with these songs as well; mental health wasn't openly discussed much back then and there was some comfort in knowing that others were struggling as well.

    It's worth noting that Lewis was plumbing the depths of his despair in this song, but he was making positive changes in his life and going through a period of personal growth. Lewis got married in 1998 and became a dedicated family man with a love of nature and a healthy outlook.
  • "Just Go" was Staind's first single, first released in early 1999 as a double-A side along with "Suffocate," and then put out as a standalone single after the Dysfunction album was released later that year.

    The band put out an album on their own in 1996 called Tormented that they sold at shows, but Dysfunction was their first on a major label, Flip Records. Flip was also home to Limp Bizkit, whose frontman Fred Durst helped get them the deal and also co-produced the album. Durst saw Staind perform when they were Limp Bizkit's opening act at a 1997 show in Hartford, Connecticut. Impressed, he mentored them, bringing them to Jacksonville to work on the album and touring with them after it was released. Dysfunction went on to sell over 2 million copies in America, but Staind's next album, Break The Cycle was a lot bigger, moving 5 million.
  • Fred Durst directed the video, which cuts between shots of the band performing a woman coming unhinged. At the end of the video, she jumps off her balcony but lands in a swimming pool. After the song ends, we see Durst in some behind-the-scenes footage as he helps the actress out of the pool.

Comments: 1

  • Luna Loud from Royal Woods, MichiganAaron plays rhythm guitar on more recent live versions of this song. I think the bridge tells that it's a back and forth cycle of abuse between the narrator and the other person, and the "needle in your spoon", obviously an allusion to heroin, is also a metaphor for how they feed the narrator the "poison" and he "feeds it", i.e., hurts other people with it.
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Scott Stapp

Scott StappSongwriter Interviews

The Creed lead singer reveals the "ego and self-fulfillment" he now sees in one of the band's biggest hits.

A Monster Ate My Red Two: Sesame Street's Greatest Song Spoofs

A Monster Ate My Red Two: Sesame Street's Greatest Song SpoofsSong Writing

When singers started spoofing their own songs on Sesame Street, the results were both educational and hilarious - here are the best of them.

Lip-Synch Rebels

Lip-Synch RebelsSong Writing

What happens when Kurt Cobain, Iron Maiden and Johnny Lydon are told to lip-synch? Some hilarious "performances."

Ben Kowalewicz of Billy Talent

Ben Kowalewicz of Billy TalentSongwriter Interviews

The frontman for one of Canada's most well-known punk rock bands talks about his Eddie Vedder encounter, Billy Talent's new album, and the importance of rock and roll.

JJ Burnel of The Stranglers

JJ Burnel of The StranglersSongwriter Interviews

JJ talks about The Stranglers' signature sound - keyboard and bass - which isn't your typical strain of punk rock.

Al Jourgensen of Ministry

Al Jourgensen of MinistrySongwriter Interviews

In the name of song explanation, Al talks about scoring heroin for William Burroughs, and that's not even the most shocking story in this one.