The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by Artist Unknown for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks!

I have always loved "Grey Cell Green." Once, in the 2010s, I experienced a fit of nostalgia strong enough, after failing to get Pandora or Spotify to play the actual song, to order a Ned’s greatest hits CD so I could own "Grey Cell Green" again. Again? Yes, again, because at one point in the early nineties I owned God Fodder, and after a period of weeks or months I got annoyed with the CD. I was a writer in high school and college, and I came to realize that Ned’s lyricist—and I write this without re-reading the lyrics to confirm it’s accuracy—used one pronoun for the vast majority of the songs: you. It’s a weakness of the English language that you is both singular and plural, but after 10 or so songs of “you”, I want a proper noun or name (Doubt has close to the same issue, but “Welcome Back, Victoria” redeems it).

Ten’s lyrics, on the other hand, are about definite things. The meanings for most songs have been explained through interviews and concert banter: "Evenflow" is about a homeless man; "Porch" is about abortion; "Deep" is about homosexuality; and "Once and Alive" are parts one and two of a trilogy about an incestually abused serial killer. And while the songs are about those things, neither “homeless”, “abortion”, nor “incestually abused serial killer” are used in the lyrics. If I never read any of the interviews or articles that quoted concert banter, I would still think that songs were about definite things, without knowing exactly what those things are. The one thing I could be sure of, is that none of Ten’s songs are about “you”.

My copy of God Fodder ended up in the used CD inventory of a record store in Maine. I still own Ten as the original US release, and a Japanese import.

– Artist Unknown