Monday Morning Mixtape 019: This One Time, at Band Camp

Welcome to Monday Morning Mixtape, a PoYB Contributor-curated playlist of songs, made just for you at the start of each week.

"This One Time, at Band Camp"

It's Jason Biggs' birthday, so yes, that's right, we're making a mixtape to celebrate the time he FUCKED A PIE!!!!

chosen by Joe

Spotify

YouTube

"Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger

from Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?, 1997

If I made a "Never Seen It" list, American Pie would have been on it. However, as I type this up, I currently have it on. Oh God, it's so painfully awkward. Oh God, I just got to the part where Jason Biggs is fucking a pie. His dad walks in?! His dad is so weirdly cool about it?? His dad talks about masturbation and calls it "stroking the salami"? Also, how old is Stiffler? He does not look like a high school student. And poor Nadia? That's a pretty fucked up thing to do to someone. Also, it's odd to think it's a stereotype somewhere that choir kids are prudish? Three pregnant girls were in choir my freshman year of high school alone. Also, it's kind of wild that Don McLean's song is not on this soundtrack. My general takeaway is that Dazed and Confused is a much better end-of-the-school-year movie, and I should have just rewatched that.  —Gloria


"Pecan Pie" by Satanic Surfers

from Unconsciously Confined, 2002

Pie is an inherently sexual being. So it makes sense that a movie about teenage desire would focus on the luscious treat. Pecan pie is my favorite kind of pie, although it's probably the hardest to have sex with. The title would probably go to lemon meringue, or some other soft variant. But still. I often make the mistake on Thanksgiving of taking too large a slice of pumpkin pie, just because I want it all on that best of American holidays. This is a waste of stomach space. Because a huge slice of pecan pie topped with ice cream after a turkey laden feast is the best thing a person can do for their soul.  —Zach


"'Cause the ice melts and then it's like second drink.'" by Eugene Levy

from "Here's to Someone" EP, 2019

Cool song name. Or is it? I, too, could put lots of nouns together and call it a song. Then again, the only song I know how to play on guitar is "Casimir Pulaski Day," very different from any of Eugene Levy's arsenal. Even though I like to pick dark music and write dark poetry, I still feel very optimistic about the future, even as the polar ice cap melts in front of our eyes.  —Zach

"Finger Back" by Vampire Weekend

from Modern Vampires of the City, 2013

I think I was mostly confused about how the pie ended up like that. I know it's gonna get fucked up when Jim sticks his penis into the pie, but the end result was that the pie was all chopped and crumbled. I suppose if I had to speculate, I'd say it was because the pie isn't that deep, and so when Jim is fucking the pie, his erect penis was scraping and dragging along the bottom of the pie pan like a push broom, and maybe that's only satisfying for one or two pumps before he has to move to different parts of the pie, and his dick is all over the pie before his dad walks in. But note that the pie is almost vertical. If he's really going about it in the way that I'm speculating here, then I have to imagine those pie guts would be all over the floor. So what, did Jim and Eugene Levy scrape up the scraps from the floor and put them back in the pan? Why? If you're telling your mother that you ate the pie, then why save the scraps? What, so you and your pops can look at them awkwardly? I don't know if this film checks out logically.  —Joe

"Devil's Pie" by D'Angelo

from Voodoo, 2000

My entry into the American Pie series was American Pie 2. Which makes sense. 1999 (the first film) was too early for me, as I was in fourth grade. Sixth grade (2001) was the perfect time to sneak in a film that we were probably too young to see. I haven't seen either of these films in forever, besides the pie scene, which exists on YouTube currently in a janky way that's clearly designed to outwit censors (it'll be gone after my linking to it right now jacks up the view count by a dozen views). AP2 did the whole "let's have the best summer" thing, which makes it a formative movie for me. Imagine if I'd seen American Pie first, though. I'd be spending my summers having sex with pies I guess.  —Joe


"What's My Age Again?" by blink-182

from Enema of the State, 1999

Sex comedies from the late '90s and early 2000s always make me think of blink-182. Maybe it's because their singles would usually play over the afternoon school bus's radio. Maybe it would be because I had older cousins with blink posters and who were teenagers (the target demographic) at that time. Anyway, this was the song that made me a fan of blink when I was thirteen years old. Nowadays, my favorite song of theirs is probably "Dammit," but that doesn't make me think of this time period in the same way. —Batts


"Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind

from Third Eye Blind, 1997

In my junior year of high school, I was dating someone who was a senior, and he asked me to go to prom. I bought my dress, shoes, and everything, but he was suspended when the tickets were for sale. They sold them in the front office, but the secretaries wouldn't sell me tickets since I wasn't a senior. I was upset, and they told me I could talk to the Vice Principal about it; I think they thought this would make me go away. But I went to speak to her and explained the situation. She told me I needed better taste in men and handed me two tickets. I didn't even pay for them. It was solid advice, but she didn't even know half of it. I wonder what she would have said if I told her that I also would need to drive to prom because my date's license was suspended after he got an underage DUI.  —Gloria


"Through the Night" by Stifler

a single, 2023

I don't remember American Pie well enough to know a lot about Stifler. But I know he's a character. Am I at all in the ballpark to say that he is somewhat like Schmidt from New Girl? I think there's a 50-50 chance that this band named themselves after the American Pie teen; the other 50 says it's the last name of a band member.  —Zach

"Sweet Sticky Thing" by Ohio Players

from Honey, 1975

I probably don't even want to rewatch these movies again. Every time I think about American Pie, I think about a brief exchange with Pat in the comment section. He's probably right. There are issues with this thing. It's just tough to separate sometimes, I think, the idea of a piece of work being formative in certain ways but totally toxic in other ways. I think the films capture the magic of being a teenager pretty well. I also speculate that it probably gave way too many teen boys the wrong idea about how to treat women. Maybe making this mixtape is a way of saying bye bye to American Pie.  —Joe


"Tribute" by Tenacious D

from Tenacious D, 2001

In 2001, Jason Biggs starred in American Pie 2... and Saving Silverman, starring Jack Black of Tenacious D. Or should that be Jack Black of A Minecraft Movie AKA "the movie that might save movie theaters while pissing off most people who aren't Gen Z?" Doesn't matter, I don't know how often it would be apt to lob a Tenacious D song into the field of play, but it feels ultra-relevant, considering we're supposed to celebrate Jason Biggs, while this Jack Black cultural phenomenon is only just winding down.  —Batts

"Sex and Magic" by Esther Rose

from You Made It This Far, 2019

It's weird to think about the time in our lives when "losing your virginity" and "being a virgin" and everything related to having sex for the first time was such a core concept for us. Maybe this is the way that American Pie fucked us up the most. Sex can be special but sex can also be totally normal. It doesn't have to be a thing that creates pressure, or worse, ridicule. And it's different for everyone, both the content and the timeline. Sometimes it's magic, and sometimes it's just sex. Also, sometimes it's sticking your penis into a pie. We should work on making sex less taboo so that we can talk about it as if we'd talk about the baseball score.  —Joe


"Love Muscle" by SEX-O-RAMA

from SEX-O-RAMA II: Classic Adult Film Music, 1998

I can't google on my work computer any deeper than I already have about why this song exists. Took me a hot minute to figure out what songs plays during the infamous pie-fucking scene, mostly because I also couldn't have the YouTube video showing on my work computer screen. But once I got there and cross-referenced with the soundtrack details on IMDB, I'm left wondering... is SEX-O-RAMA legit, or are they a parody, or what? If this song was made in 2025 instead of 1998, I would also be questioning whether it was made by AI. But no, this is a real song that the filmmakers chose for the pie-fucking scene. It was a good choice, even though it's a bad song.  —Joe


"The Worm in the Apple" by Ezra Furman & the Harpoons

from Inside the Human Body, 2008

I've been to the movie theaters a few times since 2012, of course, but I can't remember being excited to see a movie in theaters since 2012. I'm not saying that I haven't been exciting while leaving the movies after seen a great fucking movie, I'm talking about anticipating here. I try not to have any expectations at all while entering a theater, so that by necessity strips away excitement prior to. But I couldn't help it in 2012. American Reunion was in theaters. I dragged Pam along to the local movie house, and enjoyed seeing my old friends on screen get together and hang out again, just like me and my old friends were doing in the aftermath of graduating college. I was disappointed, however, to note that no one fucked a pie. Maybe someone does in one of those direct-to-video spin-off sequels? Let me know please.  —Joe

NEXT WEEK: "IT'S GONNA BE MAY" — Songs that have the word "may" in their titles, and Justin Timberlake can fuck off (chosen by Batts)