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Two Princes
Spin Doctors
Pocket Full of Kryptonite
1991

This is another one of those, but-this-wasn't-the-song-I-was-going-to-post situations.  My original pick could have been shaped like play-dough to fit this week's theme, but I thought there was something kind of boring about that.  It took all the fun out of turning the theme around and around in my head and it meant missing out on that search and the resulting reunion with some long-lost song or making a heart-stopping new discovery.

I thought about the theme all week, keeping my ears super perked up when I listened to my iPod, but didn't come across anything at random.  Then on the famous Hampstead walk (if anything, that walk provides me with some good-quality thinking time) I was just running through band names and song titles and lyrics in my head that had anything to do with royalty and I thought of this 90s gem.

Or, rather, an image of young-Stephanie hand-clapping at an early 90s Canada Day shindig in Greenfield Park popped into my head. ( Fast fact: this song only reached #7 in the US, but was #2 in Canada for weeks and weeks in 1991...hence it's prevalence at the Canada Day celebrations...haha, this song and I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers...heavy rotation).

Why this song is awesome:

That pounding drum-opening slash the drumming in general.

The kind of undecipherable lyrics (i.e. I know what a prince and lover ought to be"...I hear the word heart in there slash never really knew what he was saying until I read the lyrics carefully today).  He sounds a little drunk or like he perhaps struggles with a bit of a speech impediment or maybe that his tongue is too big for his mouth.

The yabba-dabba-do scatting at 0:42.

The storyline...the conundrum of having to choose between two mediocre princes kneeling before you...one is offering diamonds and the other one is offering to buy you rockets...TOUGH CHOICE.  Plus you have to consider whether or not you want to be a rebel (i.e. you will either be condoned or disowned by your family and your father might "eat his hat") so WHAT TO DO?  WHO TO MARRY?  I know, right?

The repetition of "If you [...] just go ahead now".

That bitchin' extended guitar solo.  It makes you like FEEL the pain of struggling with this life-altering decision slash AT THE SAME TIME the pain of being one of the princes fighting for their love (BOTH SIDES OF THE STORY).

"Whooooaaaaahhh, your majesty, c'mon forget the king and marry me!"

The perfect hand clap interlude at 2:42.

The complete and total classic 90s sound that oozes from every pore of this song (akin to what you mentioned in your Dishwalla post).  Also, also, this song is kind of disgustingly infectious.  It makes me move like a chicken strolling outside its coop and smile like...well a person with a big smile (chickens do not have lips).