PUBLIC LISTENING: CULVER’S

BUTTER BURGER BEATS

The first butter burger was thought to have been made in 1885 at a fair in Seymour, Wisconsin, when Charlie Nagreen put some meatballs between bread and fried that shit in you know what. Flash forward to 1935: At his namesake Milwaukee restaurant, Kenneth “Solly” Salmon started to sling burgers with butter, which kicked off a regional tradition that would culminate in the creation of Culver's, a dairyland fast food chain that has the distinction of having trademarked the term ButterBurger®.

The amount of butter on the burger at Culver’s is fairly moderate, at least compared to Solly’s. That one is so extreme—a stacked tablespoon between the bread and the patty—that the plate accumulates a puddle of melted butter by the end of the meal. I heard a rumor that Thurston Moore got so sick from Solly’s that he threw up on stage hours later; though I couldn’t substantiate that anywhere on the internet, I did find an interview with Bob Nastanovich and Mark Ibold from Pavement where they shout out the restaurant.

I grew up in Wisconsin, so I grew up eating these things, though I didn’t order a butter burger the last time I hit a Culver’s around a week or so ago in suburban Milwaukee. Truth be told, I haven’t gotten one in quite some time. If I’m trying to fuck with a butter burger in the city, I have to Goldilocks it: Solly’s is too intense, but Culver’s is too mass-produced, so the closest thing I can find to a perfect medium is at Kopp’s, which also has some of the best frozen custard in the state. What menu item did I order at Culver’s instead? And what music was playing as I ordered and ate it? All answers are below. It’s another exciting edition of Public Listening, presented by John’s Music Blog.

1:26: The Weeknd “Call Out My Name”

The drive-thru was rammed, the restaurant was busy, and the music was borderline inaudible. I waited in line and contemplated a somewhat abstract order, one that might feel fucked but actually ties in with Culver’s Wisconsin roots: the two-piece North Atlantic Cod Dinner, with mashed potatoes on the side. I had to keep walking into the dining room to make sure I wasn’t missing any new songs. The music could be heard better from a booth that rested directly under a speaker. The cashier, who I would guess was a new trainee, was having trouble modifying my order to include tartar sauce. I could relate. I remember my days as a Subway Sandwich Artist, and all of the customer-facing troubles that came along with the job. I got fired for making the subs too slowly…

1:30: Ron Gallo “Young Lady, You’re Scaring Me”

As I posted up in my booth and waited for my cod, I caught a Public Listening first: A song made by an artist that I have played a show with in real life. Ron Gallo specializes in garage-ish rock and roll music, but the bill we shared was not in a basement or at a dive bar. It was inside a docked Kentucky riverboat, and it was performed for a seated crowd of alternative rock radio programmers. If you would like more context, Venmo me $100, and I can explain everything over Zoom. I was back in Milwaukee, I guess I should mention, to perform a concert, the first one in over a year and the last one for the foreseeable future.

1:34: Justin Timberlake “Take Back the Night”

Beyond their actual musical output, I have very little to say about any pop star. What I will say: A while back I revisited Justin Timberlake’s confusing 2018 album Man of the Woods, which includes such song titles as “Livin’ Off the Land” and “Flannel,” the latter of which is produced by The Neptunes and sounds like The Lumineers with an 808, and I couldn’t decide if the record was made before or after its time.

1:39: Maroon 5 “Love Somebody”

I don’t know if I’ve done a Public Listening that hasn’t included at least one Maroon 5 song. And that’s the price I pay for engaging in such daring journalism… I love being inside Culver’s. It looks less like an Apple Store or a Starbucks and more like a Perkins. There is something about the place’s patterned booths and carpeting that make me want to watch sports highlights in the lobby of a mid-tier business hotel. My dinner arrived at the table, presented in a plastic tray with three compartments. In addition to my fish and mashed potatoes, there was a dinner roll and cole slaw. 

1:43: Deee-Lite “Groove Is In The Heart”

As I ate mashed potatoes and pondered how this song has, despite all odds, never been ruined for me, my mind started to drift. I’m sorry to even “go there,” but many of the arguments made either for or against that thing that we like to call “poptimism” might miss a larger point—one that I am, in my own stupid style, attempting to make with these Public Listening blog posts: Music doesn’t matter in the same way that it did for many decades in the 20th century. The battle lines being drawn and redrawn almost feel like historical cosplay. You know what, though? Fuck it. Play on! We do this shit for the love of the game. I finished my mashed potatoes.

1:49: John Mayer “Carry Me Away”

If you served a foodie this cod not at a Culver’s but rather at an “authentic” Wisconsin fish fry, the kind located inside a community center or supper club, there’s no doubt that their appreciation of it would jump by at least half. That’s true with music, too. For many artists, the narrative might be more important than the songs. I was getting into some riveting cultural inquiry as I listened to John Mayer inside a fast-food restaurant. (The lyrics to this song are insane. Just a sample: “So come on over and wake me up / Put some of your tequila in my coffee cup / You know I need you, and that's for sure / You're just the kinda crazy I've been lookin' for.”)

1:52: NOTD, Daya “Wanted”

A stone’s throw away from Culver’s sits the former site of the Shorewood Legion Hall, a venue where I played many shows as a kid. Fall Out Boy once played there, too, I guess? Anyway, one memory sticks out right now: I’m standing in the parking lot, getting chastised by a member of the band This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb for wearing a pair of thrifted Nike sneakers. After the gigs, we used to go to the nearby Baker’s Square and gorge ourselves on pie. It doesn’t get much more pure than that.

1:54: Liam Gallagher “Wall of Glass”

There is so much music out there, but is there anything to say about most of it? Here is a Liam Gallagher solo cut from 2017 that has a slight Primal Scream edge. Not great, not horrible—maybe somewhere on the lower end of the meaty middle, in part redeemed by some classically Gallagherian lyrics: “You would keep the secrets in ya' / You've been keeping paraphernalia.” The word paraphernalia sounds like it was created by god to be sung by Liam Gallagher. My fish is now gone, and I didn’t even use all my tartar sauce. It’s really a shame to see all that tartar sauce go to waste.

1:58 Faith Hill “This Kiss”

Culver’s currently has 930 locations in 26 states, mostly in the Midwest and the South. For whatever that’s worth. I get it: You signed up for a music blog, but instead you got a washed-up musician on the brink of a mental breakdown yelling at you about fast food stats.

2:01 CeCe Peniston “Finally”

Is there a better song to go out on? Look, I don’t know what to tell you; if you can’t fuck with “Finally,” you and I might not be able to fully understand each other. That’s probably not true, but great music can convince you of its own importance while you are listening to it. It can turn you into a sniveling teenage idiot. Until you snap out of it and go order a malt for the road.