Hootie & the Blowfish "Only Wanna Be With You"

The assistant chef at the banquet hall where I worked in high school was wrong. While "Only Wanna Be With You" played on the grease-covered radio in the kitchen for what had to be the zillionth time that day, my fellow busboy Steve questioned the lyrics: "I'm such a baby cause the Dolphins make me cry."

Without hesitation, Patrick (the assistant chef) told Steve that dolphins are supposed to make people happy and that they didn't make Hootie happy. Therefore Hootie is a baby. In reality, Hootie (Darius Rucker) sings about the Miami Dolphins and their championship drought in their 1995 song. 

Hootie & The Blowfish - "Tucker's Town"

"Tucker's Town" was Hootie & The Blowfish's sixth and final song to chart on the Hot 100.  The band's explosive popularity led to their music getting played on nearly every radio station from 1994-1997.  That sort of over-exposure could be credited and also blamed for their meteoric rise to and fall from fame.  The band did go on to place six other singles on the Adult Contemporary Chart, but none found mainstream success.  Lead singer Darius Rucker found success after later re-inventing himself as a country artist.

Hootie & The Blowfish - "Time"

Radio killed Hootie & The Blowfish.  The group's Cracked Rear View album burst onto the scene in 1994 and produced immediate hits: "Hold My Hand", "Only Wanna Be With You", "Let Her Cry", and "Time". Before long, every radio station was pumping out Hootie & The Blowfish. With four hit singles, you couldn't go an hour (or less) without hearing Hootie. This led to people violently screaming whenever they heard a Hootie song or even at the mere mention of the word "Hootie". I remember being a young intern at a radio station and someone sent a fax to the radio station declaring if we played another Hootie song, they would change the station. Yeah, good luck finding a station that wasn't playing Hootie (classical music, anyone?). Though commercially successful, Hootie & The Blowfish's follow up album could not replicate the success of Cracked Rear View, and the band began a slow fade into obscurity. To lead singer Darius Rucker's credit, he reinvented himself as a successful country artist.