Cut. It. Out. Every song you've ever loved is about Uncle Joey
How a half-Canadian Full House star became the musical muse of our time
Everyone knows–or ought to know–that the ‘90s feminist revenge anthem “You Oughta Know” had an unlikely muse: Dave Coulier, the half-Canadian actor/comedian known for playing Uncle Joey on the ABC sitcom Full House. You might be thinking: wait, what? The zhlub whose catchphrase was “Cut. It. Out.”? Yes. Him. That’s the Romeo who told his ex-girlfriend, snake-maned songstress and fellow dual citizen Alanis Morisette, that he’d hold her until he died. But he lost his grip, and Coulier was the toxic ex Morisette was hoping would feel it every time she scratched her nails down someone else’s back.
On a radio show last year, Coulier described the experience of hearing the song for the first time while driving through the streets of Detroit. “I was thinking, ‘Wow this girl can sing,’” he said. “Then I was like listening to the lyrics, goin’: ‘Ooooooooh. Oh noooo.’”
More recently, a rumor was circulating online that Coulier allegedly tried to holla at girl group TLC while hanging out the side of his best friend’s ride, inspiring another megahit of the ‘90s: “No Scrubs.” (Upon further inspection, this lore does not hold up).
But we here at Funny Girls Substack Inc. have conducted extensive research and uncovered a whole songbook of bangers that would not exist without the wild shirt collection and sexual magnetism that is Dave Coulier. Our mixtape below:
“My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion
The preeminent Canadian crooner released her ballad the same year that Coulier performed as a voice artist in Extreme Ghostbusters, the animated follow-up to The Real Ghostbusters (also animated). Coulier saw Dion perform at the Molson Centre as a teenager, as he recounted in a CBC interview. While there are no known instances of the two ever having interacted with each other in person, speculation runs rampant. Several fans have noted on the r/DaveCoulierDeepDive Reddit board that “far across the distance / and spaces between us / you have come to show you go on” was most certainly a reference to Coulier’s past as a long distance runner.
“Saving All My Love for You” by Whitney Houston
Coulier and Houston reportedly intersected on an elevator ride at the St. Regis Hotel in 1983. Coulier was working as a bellhop, and when he spotted Houston boarding the car, he broke protocol and squeezed in next to the stunning guest with a cart full of luggage rather than board the service elevator. There were no video cameras to capture what happened on the journey from the lobby to the 14th floor. We do know, however, that the artist recorded a body-quaking version of Michael Masser and Gary Goffin’s composition the following week.
“Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac
Did you know that the backstory of the album Rumors was, until now, missing one particular scandal? Indeed, the love triangle of Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood was actually a love parallelogram involving a teenaged Dave Coulier, who found himself in the front row when the band performed at Calgary’s Lethbridge Sportsplex in the summer of 1975. He and Nicks shared a furtive glance as she belted out the question on everybody’s mind: “Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?” Their subsequent green room tryst was interrupted by an irate Fleetwood and a confused Buckingham who quickly showed Coulier the door.
“At Last” by Etta James
The title track of James’s 1960 album came out the year after Coulier was born. His mother’s pregnancy was not without complications, and the entire eastern Canadian seaboard and at least one Californian chanteuse exhaled when Arlen Coulier returned home from the hospital with her colicky baby Coulier.
“Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton
Clapton was enjoying a white wine spritzer at a lawn party hosted by his agent, Harold Felsenthal, when a dapper young man materialized under the fairy lights. There was something about the way his highlights shimmered, and even though Pattie Boyd, the British model who would soon become Clapton’s wife, was standing nearby in a fetching ivory jumpsuit, it was the sight of Coulier’s tresses and pink Hawaiian shirt that took the musician’s breath away.
“Symphony No. 6” by Gustav Mahler
Arguably the darkest and most difficult work of the Austro-Bohemian composer, Mahler’s Symphony expresses the clanging discomfort and unease that Coulier would end up inspiring in a host of ex-girlfriends. The noted Austrian psychic and formally trained musicologist Madame Klavatsky gave a presentation at the 2008 Nuremberg Phenomenology convention that made the connection between the symphony’s vibrations and the comedian’s aura.
We have already run out of time and space and cannot include the lesser known musical tributes to Coulier (apologies, Blink-182 fans!). If any subscribers want to contribute to this critical music-history investigation, please share your discoveries with us in the comment section.
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