Wealth & Money Quote by Gene Ween

“Now in a way, money is money” lands like a shrug that’s been rehearsed in front of a mirror. Gene Ween frames the line with a little verbal throat-clearing (“Now in a way”), a hedge that signals he knows the taboo he’s about to touch: the uneasy marriage of art and commerce. The phrase is deliberately bland, almost tautological, as if stripping money of any moral charge makes the conversation safer. It’s a musician’s version of plausible deniability.

The second half sharpens the real aim: “and if it’s going to increase our audience, that’s fine.” This is not starry-eyed selling out; it’s a pragmatic, slightly defensive permission slip. The subtext is that credibility has a price tag whether you admit it or not, and the band is choosing to treat exposure as a kind of artistic infrastructure. “Increase our audience” is the clean, public-facing justification that sounds less crass than “pay our bills” or “maximize revenue,” but it’s also an admission that art doesn’t circulate on purity alone. It moves through platforms, promotion, licensing, tours - all of which cost money and, crucially, require compromises.

Coming from Gene Ween, whose career is steeped in irony, genre-mashing, and a cultivated distrust of rock sanctimony, the line works as both confession and quiet jab. It punctures the mythology that “real” musicians are untouched by market logic, while refusing to perform guilt about it. The intent isn’t to romanticize commerce; it’s to demystify it, then keep moving.