Superman (It's Not Easy)/Five For Fighting

Now through Sunday, Classics Rock! will feature songs based on comic books in honor of Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), taking place April 16-18.

Superman (It's Not Easy), from the 2000 album America Town by Five For Fighting (stage name of singer/songwriter John Ondrasik), presents the more vulnerable side of Superman, the comic book hero created in 1932 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and published by DC Comics.  This is a superhero who wants us to see his sensitive side: I'm more than a bird...I'm more than a plane/I'm more than some pretty face beside a train/It's not easy to be me.  He takes no joy in his super powers--I can't stand to fly, he states--and feels the same sense of longing that ordinary mortals do: I'm only a man in a funny red sheet/I'm only a man looking for a dream.  The song became a breakthrough hit for Ondrasik, and had particular resonance for audiences following the September 11th attacks.  "Already climbing the charts prior to 9/11, 'Superman' went on to have a life of its own, becoming a song of healing for the nation," according to the Five For Fighting web site.  "While written and released well before 9/11, 'Superman' has endeared Ondrasik to the survivors and families of those lost in that tragedy, as well as to servicemen serving around the world."

Jimmy Olsen's Blues/The Spin Doctors

This week Classics Rock! is featuring songs based on comic books in honor of Comic-Con 2009, taking place in San Diego July 23-26.

A line from The Spin Doctors song Jimmy Olsen's Blues provides the name for the 1991 album it appears on, Pocket Full of Kryptonite. The song refers to characters from the Superman mythos, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and published by DC Comics. The narrator is the hapless Jimmy Olsen, photographer for the Daily Planet. The lyrics have poor Jimmy hankering for his colleague, reporter Lois Lane (I think I'm going out of my brain/I got it so bad for little miss Lois Lane) and jealous over her relationship with Superman (I can't believe my dilemma is real/I'm competing with the man of steel). He fantasizes that he can win Lois and neutralize Superman (Lois Lane please put me in your plan/Yeah, Lois you don't need no Super Man/Come on downtown and stay with me tonight/I got a pocket full of kryptonite). Might Jimmy's "pocketful of kryptonite" have another meaning, besides referring to a substance known to be harmful to Superman? We'll leave that up to the listener to decide. The song also mentions an object often associated with Superman, a telephone booth (It drives me up the wall and through the roof/Lois and Clark in a telephone booth), and the album's cover art features an empty phone booth.