all the more so

So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes

So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes is an album by the punk rock band NOFX, released on November 11, 1997.

Overview

The band often find themselves inexplicably bombarded by footwear while performing on stage. From this, and the title of the fourth book of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, comes the record's title.

The album was recorded at San Francisco's Motor Studios in August 1997 and was produced by Fat Mike and regular Fat Wreck Chords producer Ryan Greene. The liner notes for the album claim it is 'arguably their third best album' (up to that point). Also therein the standard practice of including a photograph of each band member has been mocked, with members of other punk bands standing in for the four NOFX members:

Fat Mike is replaced by Serge Verkhovsky, bassist in Limp,
El Hefe is replaced by Otis Bartholomeu, vocalist and guitarist in Fluf,
Eric Melvin (listed as just "Melvin") is replaced by 'Little John', roadie for Swingin' Utters,
Erik Sandin (listed as "Smelly") is replaced by Chuck Platt, bassist in Good Riddance.

Track 9, "Champs Elysées", is a cover version of the track "Les Champs-Elysées" by Joe Dassin.

The final track, "Falling in Love", is reportedly a love song about a friend of Fat Mike and its wife being together as a plane crashes. The track has a 'hidden ending' that starts at timecode 4:15. It is a recording of a segment from Howard Stern's radio show in which the host's DJ begins to play the track "Drugs are Good", from the band's HOFX EP. He clearly dislikes the track and stops it after 36 seconds, effectively labelling it as disco before going on to rename the band 'No Talent'. The first pressing of the cd contains an extented bonus track: 8min instrumental immediately after this radio show segment, that ends with a 10 seconds acoustic song "Congratulations, you made it through the song, I bet you never thought anyone could play something so wrong".

On the CD it bears the Warning "Unlawful Duplication May be Hazardous to your Health!"

Track listing

All songs written by Fat Mike unless stated
"It's My Job to Keep Punk Rock Elite" – 1:21
"Kids of the K-Hole" – 2:17
"Murder the Government" – 0:46
"Monosyllabic Girl" – 0:55
"180 Degrees" – 2:10
"All His Suits Are Torn" – 2:19
"All Outta Angst" – 1:53
"I'm Telling Tim" – 1:17
"Champs Elysées" (Wilsh, Deighan, P Delanoë) – 2:02
"Dad's Bad News" – 2:02
"Kill Rock Stars" – 1:33
"Eat the Meek" – 3:32
"The Desperation's Gone" – 2:25
"Flossing a Dead Horse" – 1:46
"Quart in Session" – 1:38
"Falling in Love" – 5:13

Contains a hidden track: see Overview, above.

Trivia

The song "Flossing a Dead Horse" is a reference to the Sex Pistols album "Flogging a Dead Horse"
The song "Kids of the K-Hole" is a reference to The Adolescents song "Kids of the Black Hole", as well as a reference to the effects of the drug ketamine, or Special K.
The song "Kill Rock Stars" is titled in reference to the record label which released records by Kathleen Hannah's band Bikini Kill. The lyrics read as a response to accusations of misogyny made by Kathleen against Fat Mike, with the final line being "I wish I could have seen Courtney demonstrate some real misogyny", most likely referring to an altercation between Courtney Love and Kathleen Hannah at Lollapalooza in 1995.
The Tim in the song "I'm Telling Tim" is Tim Yohannan, founder of Maximum RocknRoll magazine, who was known for his very firm stance on what qualified as "Punk", and is a song written as a warning to the members of Green Day.* The melodic line from Leave It Alone, from the band's 1994 album Punk In Drublic, is sung at the very end of "All His Suits Are Torn."
Fat Mike narrowly avoided conflict on a recent trip to Israel after a "surfer dude" was offended by a surfboard given to him by a fan, which was similar to the cover of So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes except it read So Long and Thanks from all the Jews.