Spin The Bottle

Official Video

The video for The Juliana Hatfield Three’s 1994 single “Spin The Bottle” was directed by Ben Stiller and features actors from Reality Bites, whose soundtrack also includes the song.

Retrospectives

In April 2017 as part of her promotion for the Pussycat album, Juliana gave an interview to Elle, which they framed as an Oral History of Spin The Bottle, Juliana answered a few questions about the song including this quote:

Musically, I was really into PJ Harvey's first album Dry. My band and I were listening to it all the time in the van. She wrote using some interesting time signatures, rather than straight 4/4 rock dance beats. I was like, I'm gonna write a pop song with five beats per bar, in 5/8. The challenge for me initially was: How do I write a pop song that's in 5/8 time that people will want to dance to? Usually a dancey pop song will be in four.

I really wanted people to notice [the time signature]. That's why I counted off at the beginning: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I wanted to draw attention to the fact that I'm a sophisticated musician and I'm actively making the choice to do something difficult and dorky and mathematical. It was part of my bid to try and gain respect from people. I didn't want to be seen as a cute little pop tart. I wanted people to know I'm actually a real musician and I'm in charge, I'm doing the writing, no one's controlling me, I'm controlling the time signature.