"Hard to Explain" is the first single from New York garage rock band The Strokes (their only previously released material was The Modern Age EP). It was released first in the UK and was later released in the U.S. with different album artwork. (The UK version has a photo of two chairs, one red and one black, facing the camera. The chairs appear to be in a diner or restaurant of some sort.) Because this single is the first from their debut LP Is This It, "Hard to Explain" made the anticipation for the album proper very high, and when Is This It did come out it was widely hailed as one of the best of the year. The B-side of this single, "New York City Cops" was omitted from the U.S. version of the album in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center (the chorus to the song contains the lines "New York City cops/They ain't too smart").
Read more about Hard To Explain: Reception, Music Video, Track Listing
Famous quotes containing the words hard to, hard and/or explain:
“Affection, indulgence, and humor alike are powerless against the instinct of children to rebel. It is essential to their minds and their wills as exercise is to their bodies. If they have no reasons, they will invent them, like nations bound on war. It is hard to imagine families limp enough always to be at peace. Wherever there is character there will be conflict. The best that children and parents can hope for is that the wounds of their conflict may not be too deep or too lasting.”
—New York State Division of Youth Newsletter (20th century)
“It is what we imagine knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn, and since
our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.”
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
“What is time, then? If nobody asks me, I know; if I have to explain it to someone who has asked me, I do not know.”
—St. Augustine (354–430)