I Want to Take You Home Tonight: Difference between revisions

| Album          = Alone II

'''"I Want to Take You Home Tonight"''' is a track from ''[[Alone II]]''. The song was premiered ahead of the album's release, with Rivers playing the song for a limited audience during the takeover of Y-ROCK on wXPN 88.5 radio station.

 

New Years Eve, 2002, I went downtown in L.A. to attend a large rave. I booked a room at my favorite hotel, the Standard, which was adjacent to the rave, so that I could crash out at the end of the night in whatever state I happened to be. My favorite DJ, Paul Van Dyk, was performing. I was all alone, not coming with anyone and not planning to meet anyone there. Everything seemed lined up for a perfect night.

After getting settled in my room, I took the elevator down to the street. Many hundreds of people danced there, packed in, facing the stage. A succession of electronic acts pulsed out their music. Normally, I loved this type of environment. I would stand right in front of the giant speaker towers and let the bass pummel and massage me as I watched the people do their strange dances. Tonight for some reason, though, I couldn't get into it. I felt like a total outsider. I couldn't connect with anyone as I walked through the crowd. The music wasn't pulling me in. I imagined that everyone besides me was having a great time. My mind started tripping on its favorite worries, how to write songs, what kind of songs I should write, and whether or not my new songs were worse than my old songs. As everyone around me danced in ecstasy on New Year's Ever, I sat down on the sidewalk, took out a piece of paper from my jacket and scrawled out some notes about my situation.

<span style="color:#aa0000">1. Everybody wants to sing. What is there to worry about? People like to dance, sure–– and people like to rock. But everyone loves to feel the primal scream of song emanate from their chest, their lungs.

2. I have to lead these people. I have to remind them how to sing.</span>

Just then a random guy recognized me as Weezer's singer, walked up to me, sang "Say it ain't so-o-o-o!" directly into my face, and walked away.

I looked back down at my notes and continued.

<span style="color:#aa0000">3. See? That's exactly what I'm talking about!

4. I have to remind these people what it feels like to sing from the chest.

5. That money-moment of belting from the chest is what I'm all about. The rest–riffs, lyrics, heaviness, etc. is all secondary. If I have all of those things and NOT the belt, then I have NOTHING. A thousand "Keep Fishin's" does not equal one "Say it Ain't So-ooo-ooo-oo" That is my role, my job––that full-body F# through G#. If I don't have that––I don't have anything. Capisce?

6. It's almost as if each artist really just represents one GESTURE. Whatever ornaments surround that gesture, the fact remains that there is ONLY one gesture that is important. I accept this. Everything points to this moment. This feeling. Yes, indeedy.</span>

As lonely as I was, I left the ecstatic crowd behind and went back up to my hotel room. I had a guitar there, left by mt assistant at my request, just in case I wanted to write something, but I let it lie on the floor untouched. I sat up on the bathroom counter and focused on belting, singing out a new songs at the top of my lungs in the mirror. I figured the sound of the rave below would drown out the sound of my voice, and even my immediate neighbors wouldn't be able to hear me. The melody I sang tapped into the gesture that I imagined was "my role, my job–that full-body F# through G#"; the ingredient that I felt my newer songs had been missing. The lyrics expressed the loneliness that I felt, alone at a rave on New Year's Eve. I called the song '''"I Want To Take You Home Tonight" (Track 2)'''.

Much time had gone by as I belted out the song over and over, revising it as I went, when suddenly I heard the New Year's countdown out on the street below. I rushed to the elevator to go down and be with the people, but by the time I reached the street it was too late. The moment had passed though confetti still floated earthward and people still danced. I stumbled through the crowd, anonymous, loneliness gnawing at my gut. I sat down on the sidewalk. More time passed. The DJ played "Clocks" by Coldplay and I heart the song as I'd never heard it before–the piano riff soaring majestically as the band dropped out from under it. More time passed. I saw a face in the crowd I thought I recognized. [[Josh Freese]]. Dancing joyfully, long limbs flailing. How strange. Why was he here? I didn't know. He was an acquaintance of mine. I could have talked to him, bro'ed down with him, but that was little consolation to me on this night. I needed a soul mate.

I went back up to my room, alone, and continued to belt out the song. Experiment #431. Hardly an experiment any more at all. It had arisen pretty spontaneously, out of psychological necessity, and had been developed fairly unconsciously. It sounded like a song.