Peaches (The Presidents of the United States of America)
A goofy three-piece from Seattle armed with a two-string "basitar" and a three-string "guitbass"—and no apologies. The 1996 single off their triple-platinum debut hit No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 and charted around the world. The video put them in an orchard where the trees grow cans of peaches, until ninjas ambush the band mid-song. "Movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches" has lived in heads rent-free ever since.
The Presidents of the United States of America formed in Seattle in 1993 as a deliberately goofy live experiment: a stripped-down three-piece (Chris Ballew on vocals and two-string "basitar," Dave Dederer on three-string "guitbass," Jason Finn on drums) playing music that sounded like it was assembled from found instruments at a garage sale. Their self-titled debut arrived in 1995 and eventually went triple platinum—an astonishing trajectory for a band this deliberately silly.
"Peaches" was released as a single on February 6, 1996, written by Ballew and born from oddly specific inspiration: a phrase he'd heard someone repeat from John Prine's 1971 folk song "Spanish Pipedream," and a peach tree he'd seen in Boston. Ballew was chasing Nirvana's gnarly growl—trying to sound "gnarly and growly" in the verses—but underneath came a hook so infectious it became inescapable: "Movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches." The song peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 8 on Modern Rock Tracks, then went global: No. 8 in the UK, No. 1 in Iceland. It even earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
The music video doubled down on the goofiness: the band played in an orchard where the trees grew CANS of peaches, then got ambushed by ninjas mid-song and spent the rest of the clip fighting them. The magic had an expiration date. The band first broke up in January 1998 when Ballew needed more time with his family—but "Peaches" had already carved out its permanent spot: the era's definitive fuzz-pop goof.
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