Song of the Day 3/19: Matthew Sweet, “Farther Down”

Given the volume of bad news over the past six months, it’s inevitable that some of it slipped by without much notice. So I was surprised the other day when I learned that singer-songwriter Matthew Sweet suffered a serious stroke last October. He’s been in rehab in his native Nebraska since.

Sweet moved to Athens, Ga., in the late ’80s to attend college during the town’s emergence as a musical hotbed. After a couple of well-regarded but commercially unsuccessful albums, he broke through in 1991 with the LP “Girlfriend,” kicking off a decade-long run of releases studded with power-pop gems like the title track and “I’ve Been Waiting.” But they represented just a fraction of his prodigious output. He wrote dozens of songs that didn’t make his albums, many of which turned up on TV and movie soundtracks. Among the best was this tune from the ’90s teen rom-com “Can’t Hardly Wait.”

If you watched Mike Myers’ Austin Powers movies, you saw Sweet playing bass in Powers’ fictional band, Ming Tea, as Sid Belvedere (Sweet’s real name is Sidney Matthew Sweet). He also co-wrote this number with Myers for “Goldmember.” The films were directed by Jay Roach, husband to Susanna Hoffs, who plays in the band as Gillian Shagwell.

After the film series, Sweet and Hoffs collaborated as Sid and Susie for a trio of albums, “Under the Covers,” featuring songs of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, full of faithful renditions with occasional flourishes.

Sweet last posted an update on his condition in December, when he said he was making progress and said his goal was regaining the ability to play guitar again. Here’s hoping he makes it.