It's Sunday night, I am curled up in my room / The TV light fills my heart like a balloon

June 10, 2012 10:20 PM

In 1999, 23-year-old singer-songwriter Bree Sharp recorded "David Duchovny," a fangirl ode to the male star of The X-Files. After the demo tape proved popular in Duchovny's trailer, two X-Files assistants created a celebrity-filled music video as a gag for the show Christmas party. A grainy bootleg of the video quickly went pre-Youtube-viral among X-Philes. Twelve years later, a high-definition version of the "David Duchovny" video sees daylight for the first time.

Bree Sharp said in an interview with Rolling Stone about "David Duchovny":

"The song is about David, but it's also about the way fantasy and reality can blur. [...] And how giddy, hot and excellent that can be."

THE SINGER
The decade-plus since "David Duchovny" has seen Bree Sharp, now 36, build from viral video roots to respectable success as an indie-pop singer. Her 1999 debut album A Cheap and Evil Girl was followed almost immediately by her record label's demise. Undeterred, Sharp self-released two subsequent albums, 2002's More B.S. ("Galaxy Song," "Dirty Magazine") and 2004's live album Live at Fez ("Don't Think Twice," "Waving Goodbye").

Sharp racked up more geek-credit through English adaptations of anime: she worked as a writer for the adapted Magical DoReMi and as the composer of most of the songs in Tokyo Mew Mew / Mew Mew Power (opening theme "Team Up!," "Animal Instinct," among many others), and also contributed the ending theme "This Side of Paradise" for the movie Pokemon: Destiny Deoxys.

Sharp joined frequent collaborator Don DiLego in 2009 to form electropop project Beautiful Small Machines, which released its debut EP Robots In Love. After a recent successful Kickstarter campaign, Beautiful Small Machines is working on EP #2, tentatively titled Jetpacks Are Yes! (SPOILER WARNING: it will be geeky.)


In the meantime, amuse yourself with these Bree & BSM-flavored music videos, all various flavors of nerdy:

• Paper Planes (2012): a banjofied-cover of MIA's hit song, with choreographed hand-flapping and Bree in assorted Sexy Hipster Glasses.
• Simple Joys (4 Roy & Pris) (2009): a Blade Runner-inspired duet with Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran and a feat of amazing music video trippiness, featuring owls, glitter, BDSM birdcages, angsty slow-mo flashbacks,and inexplicably awesome feather eyelashes.
• Robots In Love (Live) (2010): On lead vocals and tambourine, Bree.
• Superconductor (2009): trigger-warning if you have flash-sensitive epilepsy or are allergic to black-and-white film.
• Everything Feels Wrong (2006): flannel and food porn!

THE VIDEO
Two assistants to X-Files creator Chris Carter concocted the video for "David Duchovny": Charles Forsch, who produced, and Will Shivers, who wrote, edited, and directed.


Play Spot-the-Celebrity in "David Duchovny," from credits on YouTube, and here.

X-Files Crew
executive producer Frank Spotnitz, writer John Shiban, producer Vince Giligan, producer Rob Bowman, director Kim Manners (died 2009), and producer Dan Sackheim, and creator/writer/director/executive producer Chris Carter

X-Files Cast
William B. Davis / The Cigarette-Smoking Man
Mitch Pileggi / FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner
Bruce Harwood, Tom Braidwood, and Dean Haglund / The Lone Gunmen Byers, Frohike, and Langly
Nicholas Lea / Alex Krycek
Chris Owens / Agent Jeffrey Spender
Gillian Anderson / Agent Dana Scully
Michael McKean / Morris Fletcher
Alex Trebek / game show host and guest star Man In Black

Celebrities
Janeane Garafalo
Charles Nelson Reilly (died 2007)
Kelly Packard & Brooke Burns from Baywatch
Jerry O'Connell
Jane Leeves, Peri Gilpin, & Moose ("Eddie," died 2006) from Frasier
Erik Estrada
Hector Elizondo from Chicago Hope
Kevin Nealon
Calista Flockhart
Whoopi Goldberg & Rosie O'Donnell
Melissa Etheridge
Jenna Elfman
Gary Shandling, star of The Larry Sanders Show, which guest-starred Duchovny as himself with a persistent crush on Sanders
Dennis Franz
Duchovny's Kalifornia co-star Brad Pitt
David Spade
Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy the Vampire Slayer
George Clooney in a blond wig
Pamela Anderson & Natalie Raitano from V.I.P
The members of KISS
Bebe Neuwirth
Vivid Girls / adult film actresses Janine, Julia Ann, & Taylor Hayes (links may be NSFW)
and last but certainly not least, Jerry Springer.



THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE MONOTONE
David Duchovny currently stars in the Showtime dramedy Californication. At age 51, he continues to be brooding and comely.

posted by nicebookrack (67 comments total)

This was far more successful then my Tabitha Soren song with the chorus "When you're talkin' about Rockin' the Vote/All I can Think about is rockin' your boat."
posted by drezdn at 10:28 PM on June 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

I WANT TO BELIEVE!
posted by Catblack at 10:29 PM on June 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh my gosh. I didn't check the many excellently-researched links, I must admit, but watching that video (more than a couple times) sent me into an emotional adolescent tailspin!

I remember watching the low-quality video on a low-quality internet connection and feeling excited that the actors and producers were acknowledging their fanbase in such a creative way.

Having said that, although David Duchovny is dreamy, Krycek will always have my heart.
posted by cranberrymonger at 10:34 PM on June 10, 2012 [8 favorites]

drezdn, you do know who Soren is married to now, right?
posted by gen at 10:35 PM on June 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I respect the amount of work put into this post, even if I don't understand it.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 10:35 PM on June 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

David Duchovny currently stars in the Showtime dramedy Californication. At age 51, he continues to be brooding and comely.

"Dramedy"? I'd describe it as a show about a bunch of middle-aged people with the impulse control, life skills and intellectual depth of first-year university students.
posted by orange swan at 10:35 PM on June 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Does he ever answer the question? Why *won't* he love me? (Or, ya know, Jerry Springer?)
posted by nat at 10:36 PM on June 10, 2012

Wow, this post was so much work!!! Go, you! I did not know this video existed and thought it was fun. I miss that show.
posted by onlyconnect at 10:37 PM on June 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

drezdn, you do know who Soren is married to now, right?

Michael Lewis, right?
posted by drezdn at 10:38 PM on June 10, 2012

Also, all that effort a decade ago and nowadays all Sharp would need to make that song into a YouTube sensation is two braided ponytails and a ukelele!
posted by onlyconnect at 10:41 PM on June 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

You had me at the Lone Gunmen mouthing "Jagged Jewish Nose."
posted by chemoboy at 10:43 PM on June 10, 2012

Also, well done, nicebookrack. I can see this page on my desktop for a few weeks as I pour through the links.
posted by chemoboy at 10:45 PM on June 10, 2012

I hope Duchovny wakes up every morning thanking whoever convinced him to do X-Files. Judging from the rest of his work he was probably more than happy do do episode after episode of Red Shoe Diaries. I'm pretty sure they added Mulder's alcohol and pornography issues to the show just to keep Duchovney interested. I can't imagine anyone writing an ode to the nameless narrator of a Cinemax softcover porn offering,
posted by Ad hominem at 10:53 PM on June 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Full quality? Not the old blurry one? Oh, wow!! Thank you!!
posted by tyllwin at 10:55 PM on June 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I have that video on VHS with a blooper reel and various European ads. I just realized that I no longer have any way of playing it.

It's funny, I was looking this past Friday to see what she was doing now. I was pleased to see she was still making music. I still listen to Cheap and Evil Girl often. Thanks for this!
posted by MaritaCov at 11:05 PM on June 10, 2012

Was this single huge everywhere? I was living in Windhoek, Namibia at the time, and it was on the radio all. the. time.
posted by mantecol at 11:32 PM on June 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

I bought "Cheap and Evil Girl" when it came out; I still listen to it on occasion. I always liked her music but never followed up, this was a wonderful post to see.

I do agree that in today's connected world, she would have just posted it to YouTube and watched it go mega viral.

I have no idea where the CD I own is anymore, but it lives on in iTunes rotation. VHS, CD, all dead media...
posted by EricGjerde at 11:41 PM on June 10, 2012

I loved this song, but had never seen this video. God, now more than ever I share Jack Donaghy and NBC's yellow slice backup plan.
posted by Guy Smiley at 11:50 PM on June 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

Where is SMG as Buffy? Does anyone know? I couldn't make it through the whole song.
posted by Malice at 12:00 AM on June 11, 2012

Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden at 3:28 and SMG as Buffy at 3:32. (Answered my own question.)
posted by Malice at 12:03 AM on June 11, 2012

I love this song and love seeing the video with all the famous people. I've never seen a show that Duchovny starred in, but knowing that he's "brooding and comely," definitely piques my interest.
posted by bendy at 12:13 AM on June 11, 2012

My favorite line has always been "I'm gonna kill Scully!". Seeing Buffy rock it just makes it 100% better.

Also, needs more dancing Mitch Pileggi.
posted by olinerd at 12:34 AM on June 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'd describe it as a show about a bunch of middle-aged people with the impulse control, life skills and intellectual depth of first-year university students.

That's why it's so great!
posted by Evilspork at 1:38 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think I see two locally famous Venice Beach performers (the black man and white woman at39 seconds in). I can't find them on the web though.
posted by zippy at 3:26 AM on June 11, 2012

Oh wow - even though I never knew it, I find myself with the feeling that...

I've been waiting...
posted by KatlaDragon at 3:30 AM on June 11, 2012

Re Venice Beach street musician cameo, here they are being interviewed and then singing My Vagina
posted by zippy at 3:33 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

the 1990s were the best decade in the universe ever. THE END.
posted by Bwithh at 3:34 AM on June 11, 2012 [6 favorites]

When I was in high school, some friends with a band recorded an equally catchy ode to Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the chorus "Whoa, Sarah Michelle / you look so cute killing demons from hell." I wonder if they ever sent it to her.
posted by pete_22 at 4:01 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

If you were a female geek growing up in the mid-to-late nineties, this just takes you back. Oh man. I had this as a low-res version on my old computer before it crashed and burned. It's amazing that I can actually make out the faces of the people appearing. Oh my! It's Buffy!

Also, Mulder/Scully 'shipper 4evah and anything after Season 6 never happened.

Cough.
posted by kariebookish at 4:02 AM on June 11, 2012 [5 favorites]

Metafilter: Self-mutilating homophobes.
posted by thanotopsis at 5:30 AM on June 11, 2012

I've got that chorus stuck in my head.

Not that I'm complaining.
posted by tommasz at 5:31 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

I had this as a low-res version on my old computer before it crashed and burned.

....I own the CD single. I was working on a show when it was popular, and I would play it while I was setting up for each performance (I was "testing the sound system," you see), usually turning it off when the cast came onto the stage to do their warmups. Then came the night that the cast all marched out from the dressing room to do their warmups and started singing it to me, and I knew I should cut it out.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:51 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

And Téa Lioni! Huh.
posted by unknowncommand at 5:58 AM on June 11, 2012

This is great. I love this from the wikipedia article, says it all!

The X-Files set received a demo tape of the song that eventually reached Duchovny, who "kept on playing it" in his trailer
posted by jamesonandwater at 6:03 AM on June 11, 2012

LATE '90s CELEBRITY CAVALCADE!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:28 AM on June 11, 2012 [3 favorites]

Q: What did your wife, Téa Leoni, think of [the song "David Duchovny?"

A: First she said, "I wish I'd written you that song." And then she goes, "I wish somebody would write a song about me." So we wrote "Téa Leoni, Why Don't You Blow Me?" together. It's a beautiful tune.
posted by Panjandrum at 6:56 AM on June 11, 2012 [5 favorites]

I remember Duchovny being on a talk show (Late Night Conan, I think), talking about his wife (Tea Leoni) griping that no one wrote HER a song. So he did. He sang the chorus on show,

"Tea Leoni, why won't you blow me."

There was much laughter.
posted by DigDoug at 6:58 AM on June 11, 2012

DAMN IT, PANJANDRUM!
posted by DigDoug at 6:58 AM on June 11, 2012 [5 favorites]

Was this single huge everywhere? I was living in Windhoek, Namibia at the time, and it was on the radio all. the. time.

I only have on data point to offer, but I was an Adult Top 40 DJ in New Hampshire in 1999, and this song was in our "B" rotation (4-5 plays a day) for a good three months, and then was played at least 1-2 times daily thereafter for the next year.

I really have a love/hate relationship with some of the songs I played in that era. A lot of them have stayed in the public mind, but songs like this fall into that category of ones that have pretty much disappeared. Whenever one gets dug up like this... it's pretty much a guarantee that I'll start thinking of the rest.

See also:

Tal Bachman - She's So High
Nine Days - Absolutely (Story of a Girl)
Len - Steal My Sunshine
posted by SpiffyRob at 7:22 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

That first line in the song about staying in on Sunday nights just to watch X-Files really brought back memories.
posted by cazoo at 7:41 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

That first line in the song about staying in on Sunday nights just to watch X-Files really brought back memories.

It was on Fridays. You shut your mouth.
posted by kbanas at 7:45 AM on June 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

Charles Nelson Reilly fits into both the Cast and Celebrities categories. He starred in the excellent Jose Chung's From Outer Space.
posted by schoolgirl report at 8:09 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

DAMN IT, PANJANDRUM!

After multiple alien abductions, my genetic material was altered by a secret program buried deep within the US government which has been in cooperation with these extraterrestrial forces. Its budget and personnel are masked under multiple small line items in numerous DoD programs, all which remain classified at the highest levels and the details of which are only available to those with the highest clearance from the NSA. As a result of this alteration, I gained limited prognosticative powers, which allow me to know when you are about to post an obscure reference involving David Duchovny and 90s pop culture trivia. I have used this ability to stymie your efforts to be the first to post a comment on the Tea Leoni Blowjob Song (TLBS). While this may seem a trivial effort, it is in fact part of a global conspiracy between multiple groups working outside legal governmental channels, though with the tacit approval of those governments, to frustrate you. Also, bees are involved somehow.
posted by Panjandrum at 8:12 AM on June 11, 2012 [6 favorites]

Charles Nelson Reilly fits into both the Cast and Celebrities categories. He starred in the excellent Jose Chung's From Outer Space.

AARGH I KNEW I MISSED SOMETHING! And I knew Jose Chung; Alex Trebek was in the same episode. BOO, ME.

If the mods feel like moving that line to the proper spot, please feel free. (Or if not, that's also fine.)
posted by nicebookrack at 8:23 AM on June 11, 2012

bees are involved somehow.

Also aglets. Their true purpose is sinister.
posted by nicebookrack at 8:26 AM on June 11, 2012 [3 favorites]

There's an interesting story behind why Alex Trebek was in Jose Chung -- it was to bust Duchovny's chops after he'd lost an episode of Celebrity Jeopardy. ....Although, originally they were trying to get Johnny Cash for the whole "man in black" in-joke reference.

That episode was as silly as it was because it was ostentibly Darin Morgan's swan-song as a writer, so he threw in all sorts of in-jokes and goofy shit -- the swearing police captain is named after a similarly foulmouthed director for the show, and that observation a character has about Scully's hair being "a little too red" was lifted from some fan forums.

And I have just proven incontrovertibly that I have no life.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:36 AM on June 11, 2012 [10 favorites]

The rest of the songs on that album, although occasionally a bit tongue-in-cheek, are much less comedic than "Duchovney", and hit hard at issues like gender inequity that Metafilter likes to talk about. I suspect the crowd here might like "Guttermouth" and "A Cheap and Evil Girl" in particular.

It's kind of a shame that the only breakout hit was pretty unrepresentative of the rest of the album - it made her sound like a female Weird Al. Don't get me wrong, it would be great to have a female Weird Al, and I loved "David Duchovney", but I suspect that a lot of people who would have liked the rest of Bree Sharp's work were given no inkling that it existed.
posted by roystgnr at 8:42 AM on June 11, 2012

Thats not HD.
posted by OwlBoy at 8:44 AM on June 11, 2012

the 1990s were the best decade in the universe ever

Please avoid organic solvents - it seems fun at the time, I know, but they do serious and permanent damage to your brain.
posted by Meatbomb at 8:47 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

And I have just proven incontrovertibly that I have no life

As the faithful link-curating devotee of 10+ years duration to a '90s one-geeky-hit-wonder pop musician with film credits IMDB can't be bothered to list, I WIN

Now srsly everyone go watch the Blade Runner vid with Simon Le Bon and the glitter owls or so help me I will put on my More B.S. tshirt and drag out the "Fairytale of New York" cover and the Japanese album B-sides
posted by nicebookrack at 8:52 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm not seeing Bebe Neuwirth. I want to see Bebe Neuwirth. Please, please help.
posted by Help, I can't stop talking! at 9:03 AM on June 11, 2012

Help, I can't stop talking: ...Bebe Neuwirth may not be in there? She was thanked in the video credits with everyone else but the credits aren't 100% accurate. IIRC the Baywatch ladies and Natalie Raitano aren't identified and Julia Ann is misidentified as JuliAnne. OR there is another JuliAnne porn actress I misidentified!

Maybe Bebe Neuwirth brought beer and got thanks for that.
posted by nicebookrack at 9:25 AM on June 11, 2012

I really have a love/hate relationship with some of the songs I played in that era. A lot of them have stayed in the public mind, but songs like this fall into that category of ones that have pretty much disappeared. Whenever one gets dug up like this... it's pretty much a guarantee that I'll start thinking of the rest.

See also:

Tal Bachman - She's So High
Nine Days - Absolutely (Story of a Girl)
Len - Steal My Sunshine

Man, how did I miss this song? I was never a huge X-Files fan (it came out right after my disillusionment with conspiracy theories) but I certainly listened to the radio quite a bit back then. I remember each of those three songs clearly, but I can't say I've ever heard this song before.
posted by kmz at 10:18 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm trying to find something to rhyme with Pileggi.
Back in my x-files newsgroup days I joked that I enjoyed my Sunday night beverages in a beer stein shaped like his manly head. I miss the x-files (though I have Fringe) and I miss my imagininary Skinner-stein.
posted by Biblio at 1:06 PM on June 11, 2012

THIS IS RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS!
posted by biscotti at 2:20 PM on June 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

I had never seen this before, and i love the x-files, so thanks for this, it made me laugh. I also love Shandling and Larry Saunders, and the 2nd Duchovny/Sanders link was hilarious. There is an x-file where they are all in seperate baths and they have a 3 way phone conversation (Hollywood AD?) and Scully says something like "I thing Shandling likes you" and Duchovny is all "oh? Really?" Class.
posted by marienbad at 3:21 PM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Pileggi liked to give an FBI wedgie.
posted by TMezz at 6:28 PM on June 11, 2012

*snerk* I remember all the jokes from the TWOP forum about how Skinner and Doggett were in love and were eventually going to retire to Vermont, get married and open a pie restaurant.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:12 PM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Wow, I never thought that a good copy of this would see the light of day. Thanks!
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:20 PM on June 11, 2012

*snerk* I remember all the jokes from the TWOP forum about how Skinner and Doggett were in love and were eventually going to retire to Vermont, get married and open a pie restaurant.

Imagining that it would suddenly turn into a show about Skinner and Doggett, two wise-cracking FBI agents from different sides of the tracks who learn to work together and overcome their natural adversity towards each other, was pretty much the only way I got through the last few seasons.
posted by skycrashesdown at 8:22 PM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

I don't want to believe in the interloper.
posted by the_artificer at 8:25 PM on June 11, 2012

Skinner and Doggett were in love and were eventually going to retire to Vermont, get married and open a pie restaurant

I would watch the HELL out of that show. I would buy physical DVDs of that show and polish them every Christmas. What do I need to do with my life to receive such a treasure as the action-packed romance of terse gay badasses who love fine pastry and shooting bad people?
posted by nicebookrack at 8:26 PM on June 11, 2012

There is an x-file where they are all in seperate baths and they have a 3 way phone conversation (Hollywood AD?) and Scully says something like "I thing Shandling likes you" and Duchovny is all "oh? Really?" Class.

Interesting - in the Larry Sanders Show there is a multi-episode plot arc where Duchovny is pushing to be crose brofriends with Larry, and there is a lot of playing with the"is he gay?" idea.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:28 PM on June 11, 2012

Hey, that's wild. Bree Sharp was a kid in my summer camp! I recall when this song started to hit, everyone from camp was pretty excited. I'm glad to know her career is still going strong.
posted by Miko at 6:24 AM on June 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

What do I need to do with my life to receive such a treasure as the action-packed romance of terse gay badasses who love fine pastry and shooting bad people?

I actually found the thread devoted to the Skinner/Dogget UST here -- a thread named after the purported restaurant, "Walter and John's House of Pies". I think after someone named the restaurant, the term "House of Pie" became a forum term for "detected homoeroticism between Skinner and Dogget" ("and then right before Scully came in in that one scene, that was TOTALLY a House of Pies moment").
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:01 AM on June 12, 2012

I was an Adult Top 40 DJ in New Hampshire in 1999, and this song was in our "B" rotation

I really wish these kinds of lists survived better and found their way to publication better. It always frustrates me a little that Billboard charts and the like really don't tell you what a given time in the past sounded like. What charts and lasts in memory as the "big hits" of the day doesn't always reflect what's in regular rotation as part of the aural wallpaper of an era, and the station genre gets ignored in the charts. For that actual texture of time and place, you'd need real radio playlists.
posted by Miko at 1:15 PM on June 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Would that I could go back in time and pocket our playsheets instead of recycling them, Miko. There's a slim chance some survive in my parents' basement, but failing that, feel free to pick my brain anytime.

And in the meantime:

Stroke 9 - Little Black Backpack
SR-71 - Right Now

And of course, the brief period where we tried to support local bands...

Percy Hill - Chrissy Reid

(Now I'm bummed that I can't find Zenflower's "Crystal Eyes" online.)
posted by SpiffyRob at 5:58 AM on June 13, 2012