"Little Boxes"

Recently I have been on a Weeds kick. In a nut shell, Weeds is about a young widow who sells marijuana in order to raise her children. The theme song of Weeds is called "Little Boxes." The original version and lyrics are by Malvina Reynolds. Each episode, after season one, features different musician's renditions of "Little Boxes."

These are the lyrics to "Little Boxes":
"Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same There's a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses all went to the university
Where they were put in boxes and they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and there's lawyers, and business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course and drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children and the children go to school
And the children go to summer camp and then to the university
Where they are put in boxes and they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business and marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky and they all look just the same."

Reynolds, in 1962, writes about the development of the suburbia. The "cookie cutter homes" are all the same; there is no self-expression. Each person is basically the same, well-off and rich. Life becomes nothing but an endless cycle. Like at the end of the song, the same life is repeated in the children. Weeds uses this song because of its basis in suburbia. The irony of it is, no one in suburbia is the same. Perhaps to the rest of the world they are, but behind closed doors they cheat, get high and sell drugs. Everyone has problems and makes mistakes, they might not be visible to the entire world, but they are there. That is life, the truthful life.