Entry #3 in Little Hits' ongoing series "Stewart Mason's wispy-little-girl-singers," "As Skittish As Me" (from the flip of 1996's lovely "The Best Days" single) is everything I love about the Softies in a little under 110 seconds. A decade or so ago, while the Softies were still a going concern, I was on a mailing list that erupted into a days-long flame war about whether or not the Softies were, or were not, "punk rock." In fact, if I recall correctly, that episode was about the time I thought "Good lord, what am I doing here?" For the record, however, I would say that for their time and place, the Softies were exceedingly punk rock, in the sense that quiet, drumless twee-pop songs built on vaguely jazzy chords and delivered in winsomely ragged harmonies were a needed reaction to the flannel-clad dick-swinging that took precedence in the post-Nirvana age.