A Graphic of the 1998 Goo Goo Dolls Hit: “Iris”

 

This graph­ic shows the lyrics to “Iris’” by The Goo Goo Dolls (1998). Lyrics via AZlyrics.com. Visu­al­iza­tion cre­ated with Tagxedo.com.

The well-known rock band, The Goo Goo Dolls, was formed in 1985 on Memo­r­i­al Day in Buf­fa­lo, New York. This three per­son band is led by John Rzeznick, a gui­tarist and vocal­ist. On the stage with him is bassist and vocal­ist Rob­by Takac and drum­mer George Tutuska.

The three men were ini­tial­ly known as the Sex Mag­gots, and their new name was cho­sen from an ad in True Detec­tive mag­a­zine at the behest of a local club own­er. Orig­i­nal­ly, the Goo Goo Dolls were fre­quent­ly dis­missed by crit­ics as imi­ta­tors of the Replace­ments, anoth­er Amer­i­can rock band that was formed ear­li­er, in 1979. 

 

They are extreme­ly well-known for their 1998 song “Iris,” which was on their album Dizzy Up The Girl. Accord­ing to billboard.com:

Rzeznik and the band shook off a case of writer’s block to con­tribute a new bal­lad, “Iris,” to the sound­track of the 1998 Nico­las Cage/Meg Ryan romance City of Angels. Appear­ing that April, the song became a mon­ster smash, although it was nev­er released as a sin­gle (so its offi­cial Top Ten pop chart sta­tus does­n’t con­vey how pop­u­lar it was). For a bet­ter indi­ca­tor, “Iris” spent near­ly a year on Bill­board­’s air­play charts, includ­ing an aston­ish­ing 18 weeks at num­ber one, and was nom­i­nat­ed for three Grammys. 

Accord­ing to an inter­view Song Facts had with John Rzeznick, when they asked him his thoughts while writ­ing the song “Iris,” Rzeznick claimed:

When I wrote it, I was think­ing about the sit­u­a­tion of the Nicholas Cage char­ac­ter in the movie. This guy is com­plete­ly will­ing to give up his own immor­tal­i­ty, just to be able to feel some­thing very human. And I think, ‘Wow! What an amaz­ing thing it must be like to love some­one so much that you give up every­thing to be with them.’ That’s a pret­ty heavy thought.

The Goo Goo Dolls pro­duce some of the best rock music around. They are relat­ed to oth­er well-known bands such as Match­box 20, Count­ing Crows and  Semi­son­ic.

Learn more about The Goo Goo Dolls tour for their new album Mag­net­ic, which was released in 2013 here.

Below is the offi­cial music video for “Iris”, which was post­ed on The Goo Goo Dolls offi­cial YouTube page.