"All I Want" — Toad the Wet Sprocket

Toad the Wet Sprocket formed in Santa Barbara in 1986 out of San Marcos High School, singer Glen Phillips 15 and the other three 19, and played their first show at an open-mic talent contest that September. The name came from a Monty Python "Rock Notes" sketch on the Contractual Obligation Album; Phillips has called it "a joke that went on too long." They self-financed Bread & Circus in 1989, were signed by Columbia while recording Pale in 1990, and cut Fear in January 1991 at Granny's House in Reno with producer Gavin MacKillop. Columbia released it on August 27, 1991, to little effect.

"All I Want," credited to the band, was the album's second single in 1992 and the one that caught. Phillips has said it is "about how fleeting any kind of epiphany is," about "the moment passing very, very quickly" and "a desire to hold onto it." It climbed to number 15 on the Hot 100, number four on the Top 40/Mainstream chart, number 11 in Canada and number 53 on the 1992 year-end chart, and it pulled Fear onto the Billboard 200 at number 49 a full year after release. "Walk on the Ocean," a lyric Phillips says he wrote as "literally the first thing that came across my mind" after a trip to Orcas Island, followed it to number 18. Fear was certified platinum on September 1, 1994.

Dulcinea (1994) delivered "Fall Down," a number one on the Modern Rock chart, and went platinum too; "Good Intentions" landed on the Friends soundtrack; Coil came in 1997. The band split in July 1998 over creative differences, toured again in 2006, announced a full-time reunion in December 2010, Kickstarted New Constellation in 2013 with $264,762, and marked 40 years with Rings: The Acoustic Sessions in 2026. "All I Want" kept working on television in the meantime, from Doogie Howser, M.D. to Dawson's Creek and Homeland.