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Alone II liner notes (view source)

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Why don't you, please?</span></poem></blockquote>
Why don't you, please?</span></poem></blockquote>


<big>'''I'''</big>n '93 I had spent a lot of time listening to ''Jesus Christ Superstar''. In '94, on the road with Weezer, I listened to ''Les Miserables'', Verdi's ''Aida'' and Puccini's ''Tosca'' and ''Madama Butterfly''. I loved how these works married music and drama, how the different characters would sing to each other instead of talk and how the story unfolded through song. I realized that musical-drama could be the larger scale composition I wanted to write for Weezer's second record: a new-wave influenced rock musical in which I could explore my feelings about relationships, stardom, and my life in Weezer. I would call the musical, ''Songs from the Black Hole''. I purchased an Electro-Harmonix keyboard and a Korg keyboard from Center Music in Newington, Connecticut on January 3, 1995, to add a sci-fi tone to Weezer's guitar crunch. I got excited, now knowing what I wanted to do. I started planning and writing out sketches, music, and songs. To stand for my relationship with Chiba, I imagined a character named Maria (a role which I hoped to be sung by Joan Wasserman of the Dambuilders, though I abandoned the project before asking her.) In the liner notes to ''Alone I'', I quoted the opening scene of ''The Black Hole'' in which Maria lets the guys known how she feels about being called a "b***h". Next Maria opens up to Jonas in private.
<blockquote><poem><span style="color:#aa0000"><u>The Black Hole</u> synopsis
Act I
10 May 2126
Scene I (The Main Deck)
...Jonas tries to calm Maria, taking her into the hall. Maria says she loves him.
'''"Oh, Jonas" (Track 8)'''
[Maria]
Oh Jonas, I miss you
Nobody else loves me like I do
Oh Jonas, I need you
Nobody else, nobody else loves me, loves me like you
Jonas insists that he and Maria can only be friends, because she's much too crazy for him. Maria says that she'll make him love her.
'''"Please, Remember" (Track 9)'''
[Jonas]
Please, remember I'm only a friend
[Maria]
A friend who boinks me
[Jonas]
You're too crazy to settle down with
[Maria]
Then why lead me on?
[Jonas]
I don't love you but I can't help myself
[Maria]
I'll make you love me
[Jonas]
Please, Maria, it won't ever be
[Maria]
I'll make you love me
[Jonas]
I love you
[Maria]
Love me
[Jonas]
I do
Maria brings Jonas to her pod and seduces him.
'''"Come to my pod" (Track 10)'''
[Maria]
Come to my pod
There's no one there, we'll be alone
We can talk
And if you want to, we'll get stoned
And relax, have fun
In my pod
[Jonas]
In your pod no one knows the things we do
We'll get high
We'll get high, if you want to we'll sniff glue
And relax, have fun
In your pod
[Jonas and Maria]
In my/your pod
There's no one there, we'll be alone
We can talk
And make love the whole night through
And relax, have fun
In my/your pod
[Maria]
Now that we're left alone
Touch me and kiss me and love me</span></poem></blockquote>
<big>'''I'''</big>n February, 1997, I went back to Harvard to finish my Junior Year. I decided to take all English classes as if I were an English major, leaving open the option to formally switch to English (from Music) at the end of the semester. I had become disillusioned with my goal of becoming a classical composer. That was because, firstly, with Harvard's emphasis on scholarship, as a music student I was mostly writing papers anyway. I might as well be an English major. Secondly, the music being created at Harvard and at other contemporary music schools was not the kind of classical music that I liked. Harvard music, to my ears, was modern, 20th century, atonal, serial, non-catchy, and non-emotional. The music I liked was Romantic, heart-stirring, with Puccini and Tchaikovsky-esque melodies, and of course the even older music of Bach and Beethoven. Thirdly, I now blamed my love for classical music and large scale composition for the failure of Weezer's second record. I perceived my interest in this field as egotistical and pompous. What, was I too good for simple three minute pop songs that everyone loved? Then I deserved to fail. And lastly, now that my career as musician was in doubt, English seemed like the more practical choice in the event of a necessitated career change.
I felt quite at home in my English classes. Out of all the subjects in school, this was what I had always been best at–reading a story or poem and then writing a critical essay about it. But the super-academic milieu of Ivy League English wore me down just as the Music department had. By April, I was fried from hearing academic language every day. When one of my classmates, Lucia Brawley, left a message for me on my home answering machine relaying an assignment I had missed, I couldn't believe how obtuse the language of my world had become. I snapped mentally and made a sound collage of Lucia's message, calling it <span style="color:#aa0000">'''"Harvard Blues" (Track 5)'''</span>. Yet I persisted with my schoolwork. At the end of the semester, on the last possible day, as Weezer was about to embark on what would be its last tour for three years, I changed my major to English.
<big>'''"H'''</big>arvard Blues"</span> was not a real song, though. In fact, I hadn't written a complete song since June of 1996, when I had written ''Pinkerton's'' "Butterfly". Now in the summer of '97, as Weezer toured with No Doubt, I continued to overhaul my compositional style, furiously thinking things through and writing in my journal. The word around which my thoughts now crystallized was "structure." "Good structure" was what, I concluded, the music of the trance bands and Oasis and Nirvana had and ''Pinkerton'' didn't have. Whereas ''Pinkerton'' was all wildly expressive, with non-repetitive and highly developed lyrics, chords and melodies, "well-structured" songs exhibited an economy of ideas–just two or three ideas, contrasting perfectly, and positioned perfectly in relation to each other. The perfect verse, the perfect chorus, the perfect bridge. That's all one needed. Repeat three times. Done. So easy. That's what the listener wants. How could I have been so stupid? Of course Pinkerton had to fail. On July 31, I wrote, "Not melody, not lyrics but STRUCTURE, like Noel Gallagher's songs. / Learn all the Oasis songs."
On August 8, the tour was almost over, and I anticipated getting back to work as a songwriter, finally. Again I concluded that what I needed was to isolate myself and to work as hard as I could.
:<span style="color:#aa0000">Man, what an amazing summer. I'm sad now. I'm leaving Taipei. Leaving Asia. Leaving the insanity, the girls, the epic battles, the cruise. But it's time to work again. It's time to be alone and to produce. I want to produce like a monster now. No more slacking, napping. ... My body's really crashing now, finally. From lack of sleep, caffeine, drinking; stress and foreign bacteria. I've been having dizzy spells, paranoia, and a fear of fainting and of enclosed spaces. Soon I'll be reading and writing, writing and recording songs, playing piano, and playing soccer.</span>
:<span style="color:#aa0000">Alone.</span>
:<span style="color:#aa0000">These guys in Weezer have been good friends. We're more of a team now.</span>
:<span style="color:#aa0000">PINKERTON IS OVER.</span>
When it came time to choose a subject to write a song about, I couldn't help but think of M., whom I had met on December 3 of the previous year. I had been signing autographs at a table in Tower Records in New York, my head down. Brian nudged me and said, "Hey Rivers, check it out..." I looked up and saw her standing in line, a young woman with black hair in a puffy silver parka. She was just about as shiny, beautiful and physically flawless as a woman could be. I felt sick to my stomach but still managed to talk to her a little as I signed my name. I invited her to our show that night at Roseland. She agreed to attend though it turned out that she wasn't even a fan. She just happened to be in the store and gotten caught up in the excitement of our little performance and signing. She actually knew nothing about American rock music, which I thought was very cool.
At the show that night M. was knocked unconscious by the sudden press of the crowd when Weezer went on stage. It was her first concert and she had not expected it. She had to be pulled out of the crowd by bouncers and tended to by a medic. She missed most of our show. She also lost her purse. After the show I went out on the floor looking for her. I found her and helped her search for her purse, which we didn't find. Then she came back to my hotel with me and spent what little remained of the night with me talking, innocently, in bed. In the morning, we said goodbye to each other and I got on the Weezer bus bound for New Haven. I couldn't believe that someone as gorgeous as she was apparently excited about me.
After I went back to school in February I saw M. a few times. I visited her in New York where we skated at Rockefeller Center. And she came up to see me once in Cambridge where we played one-on-one soccer in the lightly falling snow in the dusk at Danehy Park near my house. I toasted bagels for her and we went downtown to see "West Side Story". Bernstein's music seemed to perfectly express how I felt for her. The phrase that came to my mind when I thought of M. was <span style="color:#aa0000">'''"The Prettiest Girl In The Whole Wide World" (Track 12)'''.</span> And this was the phrase that I would use for a title now that I was ready to write my first song since Pinkerton. On April 20, I wrote the chorus:
<blockquote><poem><span style="color:#aa0000">I got the prettiest girl in the whole wide world
And nobody can taker her from me
And in the evening when she goes out walking alone
I wait at home patiently
I've never been so happy
I've never been so sure</span></poem></blockquote>
I had to wait until August before I figured out how to develop the song. I wanted a perfect (and minimalistic) structure–restrained, simplistic, and repetitive. As I wrote the verse, I strummed only one chord, a B chord, over and over, and limited my playing to just that. What could be more different from ''Pinkerton''?
<blockquote><poem><span style="color:#aa0000"><span style="color:#aa0000">Sunshine is falling
Over my head
Turtle doves are calling
"Good morning, friends"
Red roses blooming
All unaware
Of seasons turning
Of coming care
I've got the prettiest girl in the world
and I'm in love with her</span></poem></blockquote>
I thought that it was a stunning melody and that it perfectly captured my passion for M.'s beauty. I loved it. I also loved the foreshadowing of doom in the lyrics: "Red roses blooming, all unaware of seasons turning and coming care." And I loved the irony in the line, "I've never been so sure." The listener just knows I'm doomed! With these lyrics I meant to criticize my passion even as I was reveling in it.
<big>'''B'''</big>y the beginning of 1999, I had not managed to write any songs in which I felt any confidence, despite having devoted almost all of my time and energy to the effort since August, 1997. My band-mates each were pursuing other projects. Weezer's manager and record company rep stopped calling me regularly. Friends and family grew distant. I encouraged the space so that I could be alone. I determined that with enough concentration and effort, I could analyze my way out of the predicament I imagined myself to be in, the predicament of "poor songwriting". For the first time since I was a teenager, I now allowed myself to analyze my writing process in detail. I began to think of my writing sessions as experiments from which I could learn whether or not they turned out good. I disciplined myself to write a steady stream of these song-experiments, giving each a number, and keeping a log of my work called "[[Catalog of Riffs|The Catalog o' Riffs]]." I analyzed a large number of writing methods, varying what seemed to be every possible facet of the process: the order of the steps (guitar, melody, lyric, beat, riff, etc.); the tempo; the feel; the level of distortion on the guitar; whether I was composing aloud or in my head; the time of day; my emotional state; whether I had eaten or not; the number of drinks I had imbibed, if any. My goal was to ascertain the one method by which I could write the best songs.
The music I produced cycled through various styles, from extremely abrasive to light and folky, but in accord with my new post-''Pinkerton'' values, almost none of the lyrics had any personal meaning. Many of the results appealed to me, but frustratingly, I did not feel satisfaction or confidence in any one of them for long. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking, maybe I should write a song with personal meaning–after all, that was what had always worked for me in the past (in the sense that it had generated songs that I loved). But the relatively low sales and critical reviews of the uber-personal Pinkerton convinced me that I had to learn to write songs that worked without personal meaning; I had to construct songs that were so compositionally perfect that no one could deny them. This was how I saw Nirvana's and Oasis's songs, the lyrics of which seemed largely impersonal and incomprehensible to me. So I kept trying.
Song experiment #49, utilizing method "[[Arbitrary-Progression-Distortion-open-Strum-Intro-Melody-Arrange]]", produced a somewhat Oasis-sounding song, with its loping bar chords and bluesy solo. <span style="color:#aa0000">'''"Cold And Damp" (Track 18)'''</span>
The lyrics meant nothing to me on a conscious level. They just came out of my mouth automatically in reaction to the sound of the guitar chords. The melody I loved. Overall, the song had a strong appeal for me and I worked on it for quite a while.
<big>'''E'''</big>leven more months passed making song-experiments, growing ever more disappointed and anxious, until finally one day in November I felt so stressed that I absolutely had to express my mind-state in a song, impersonality be damned. Without even picking up an instrument, I wrote the opening stanza to <span style="color:#aa0000">'''"My Brain is Working Overtime" (Track 6)'''</span>:
<blockquote><poem><span style="color:#aa0000">My brain is workin' overtime,
I need something to ease my mind
And as my thoughts go manic
I reel and start to panic
Cuz there's no place to hide behind</span></poem></blockquote>
I logged this stanza as an experiment #92 in the [[Catalog of Riffs|Catalog O' Riffs]]. It seemed unusually compelling to me but I was still so rattled by anxiety that I could not maintain the faith to finish it. Over the next few months I continued on with other song-experiments and mostly avoided any personal content. But in January 2000, I happened to review #92 and determined that it was indeed strong, and precisely because of its personal nature and psychological truth for me. I finished the lyrics:
<blockquote><poem><span style="color:#aa0000">
I freak and then hallucinate
I go at lights when I should wait
My parents think I'm lazy
But damn I'm going crazy
I can't help my mental state
Oh la la (he's trippin')
La dee da (mental slippin')
Take these brains out of my way
I work into a frenzied clip
I bit the corners of my lip
I'm losin' my appetite
My pants don't even fit right
Take away the month-old dip
My hair could start a bowl cut fad
The state of my attire is sad
And if I was run over
By a brand new Range Rover
Hey, I'd actually be glad
</span></poem></blockquote>
It was February, 2000, with the catalog growing to 167 entries, before I finally had the confidence to play even a handful of the songs for anyone. Weezer's manager came over to my house to hear what I had. When he heard #92, he said, "''That's'' a hit!" and that exclamation was one of the reasons I felt confident enough to get back on the road and in the studio with Weezer. I felt like I had finally written something worthwhile after two-and-a-half years of near-fruitless labor in a science lab. And for that reason, I felt gratitude for this song.
<big>'''A'''</big> year-and-a-half later, on May 15, 2001, with a total of 286 entries in [[The Catalog O' Riffs]], ''The Green Album'' was released. I was still racked with self-doubt and bothered by external criticisms that the album wasn't as good as the earlier albums and that the new songs all sounded the same. At the same time, I was encouraged in my empirical approach to creativity because of the commercial success of the album and its subsequent tours, and by the fact that I seemed to have emerged from Weezer as a star personality. I therefore continued, anxiously, with my experiments and The Catalog O' Riffs.
On September 5, I conducted experiment #333, the method being "Concept (IAEVC)-Incipit-Melody-Guitar-Develop-Tea." "IAEVC" was an acronym which stood for an "intellectually acquired emotionally volatile concept." It meant that rather than waiting to be overwhelmed by a feeling to write about, I would calmly seach my mind for a subject which I knew had the potential to inspire emotion in me. I would then compose the incipit (the opening lyric) which was the seed idea, the main thrust of the lyric, then write the melody, start strumming the guitar and continue developing the lyric, melody, and guitar from there freely. And all throughout the experiment, I would be sipping a cup of tea with half-and-half.
The first IAEVC that came to my mind when I sat down to write experiment #333 regarded my friend [[Kevin Ridel]]. Kevin had been my friend since we were in the same band in high school. He had also been one of the main sources of inspiration for me to start writing melodic pop songs instead of heavy metal guitar compositions. I had always been amazed at Kevin's ability to churn out emotional, personal and catchy songs so effortlessly. In 2001 when [[Am Radio]] and Weezer both recorded a batch of new demos at the same time, I listened back to all the recordings at once and painfully told myself that Kevin's songs blew mine away. My admiration for Kevin, then, was the IAEVC for experiment #333. The incipit generated by it was <span style="color:#aa0000">'''"I Admire You So Much" (Track 16)'''</span>. I sang those words to the first tune that popped into my head, started strumming the guitar, and then developed the song from there, abandoning the original concept and letting the lyrics flow freely from my unconscious mind. I recorded the experiment on an Olympus digital handheld recorded. It was a promising start to a song.
<blockquote><poem><span style="color:#aa0000">I admire you so much
In the morning time our hearts will touch
Hold, hold on
'Cause I never needed anyone like this
You never needed me
I never needed you
And that's the way we are
</span></poem></blockquote>
<big>'''N'''</big>ew 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.</span>
:<span style="color:#aa0000">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!</span>
:<span style="color:#aa0000">4. I have to remind these people what it feels like to sing from the chest.</span>
:<span style="color:#aa0000">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?</span>
:<span style="color:#aa0000"> 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 <span style="color:#aa0000">'''"I Want To Take You Home Tonight" (Track 2)'''</span>.
<blockquote><poem><span style="color:#aa0000">I want to take you home tonight
And lay you down beside the fire
I've never seen your face before
I probably won't see you no more
I hope I find another girl
That thinks that I am lovely too
But they don't make those kinds of girls
And so I cry from me to you
This is another New Year's Eve
And I am happy with myself
I like to disco on the floor
I probably won't see you no more
If all I take from this ordeal
Is to sit down with you and feel
And tell you that I love you so
I probably won't see you no more
Don't go, I want you to stay
I need you to stay and hold me
Don't go, I want you to stay
I need you to stay and hold me</span></poem></blockquote>
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.
<big>'''I'''</big>n May of 2003 I went to my first Vipassana meditation course in the hopes that the technique could melt away the thought patterns that infused my creative process, the self-doubt, the self-criticism, the fear of trying new things, the craving for a reliable formula. One of the first things that came up for me, during my second Vipassana meditation course, in June, sitting in the meditation hall for twelve hours a day for ten days in silence, with nothing but my mind and my memories, was a painful experience I had had fifteen years earlier. 1986-1987, my Junior Year of high school, was the toughest year of my life, in terms of getting hassled, picked on and bullied. That was the year that I had stumbled upon the perfect formula for "doing" my hair (wash, condition, apply several dollops of Dep gel, blow dry whilst scrubbing scalp with palm, then a heavy coat of Aqua Net "Extra Super Hold") and the jocks did not like it one bit. They also did not like the ripped jeans, spandex, chains, spiked wristbands, faux fox tails, and zebra bandanas that my friends and I wore to school every day. Especially, they did not like the music that we liked: Metallica, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Kiss. Scott H. (about twice my body mass) and the others taunted, pushed and shoved us and made us terrified for our physical safety when we had to walk through the halls in between classes.
David was one of Scott's group, and he, for some reason, picked my brother, [[Jimmy Kitts|Jimmy]], a year younger than I, for his mark. As I remember it, one day David challenged Jimmy to a fight and offered us what appeared to be attractive terms: if Jimmy would meet David, alone, in the back of the school after classes let out, and fight him one on one, then David's whole group would leave us all alone thereafter. This was the one fight that David really wanted to have, apparently.
Jimmy, Matt, Justin, Adam, our other friends and I mulled it over. This fight, if my brother would face it, would mean liberation for our whole gang.
"It's up to you, Jimmy," I said
Jimmy accepted. He went out behind the building after school and I stayed inside, telling myself that Jimmy and David were supposed to go out there alone to fight together. I was supposed to stay inside. I knew damn well that David wasn't going out there alone.
"Pete, you should go outside," Adam said to me in the foyer of the school. "They're all out there. They've got him surrounded."
I told myself again, I'm not supposed to go out there. He's supposed to be out there alone.
They had him in a circle. David hit him to the ground and I stayed safe inside.
After the Vipassana course in 2003 during which I remembered these events, I happened to be going to my brother's house. When I got there, I sat at the desk in his home office and wrote <span style="color:#aa0000">'''"I Was Scared" (Track 4)'''</span>.
<blockquote><poem><span style="color:#aa0000">Listen to me, I've got to clear the air
There's something I've held way down
Deep inside all these years
You always were a friend
You always trusted me
But now I must admit
That I was not so trustworthy
I let you down, I sold you out
I turned away as you fell onto the ground
I was scared, I was terrified
I was lost and so I shied away
I don't know what I can do
To make it up to you
I can't turn back the clock
I can't rewrite the book
But if I could, the end would be happy
And you would be safe and I would be proud
To look at you when I look you in the face
Though I loved you I was so afraid
I could not think of anything to say
Though I loved you
Though I trusted you
Thought I needed you
I was so afraid
I promise that I'll never do
The thing that I did on that day
When I acted like a fool
When I acted like a fool
I might get my ass beat,
my throat slit
or my fingers hacked
But I'll never miss another chance
To watch my brother's back
And I got your back
</span></poem></blockquote>
Then I went out to Jimmy's kitchen and told him how sorry I was for not defending him on that occasion in 1987, for letting my fear of physical pain and injury prevent me from helping the little brother that I loved so much. I continued to go on about it for an undue amount of time until finally he said, almost amused, "Let it go." I was so grateful that he said that.
<big>'''I'''</big>n the summer of 2005, Weezer went to Europe to do a festival run. I arrived a few days early in order to spend some time with my half-brother, Gabe, and step-brother, Shannon, both of whom grew up in Germany and have a strong European sensibility, though being American citizens. I was always amazed at how different their musical perspective was from mine or from anyone else that I knew–it was all about house music for Gabe. As we screamed down the Autobahn at 130MPH, he played the latest house hits for me and explained the genre.
"It's gotta have that beat and some cool riffs. It's gotta have a simple, cool lyrical phrase that the singer says over and over like that."
I couldn't believe that this music was so popular–as popular in Europe, it seemed, as Black Eyed Peas or Gwen Stefani in the States. I couldn't believe it because there was hardly any singing or lyrics! "Trust me," said Gabe. "This is going to be the biggest hit of the summer." He played a track called "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3kkNfH4yco The Weekend]" by some unknown-to-me guy named Michael Gray. It had a jammin' beat for sure, but without a strong vocal presence and personality, without many lyrics, I couldn't help but think it was only half a song, that it was missing the main point of connection. I kept an open mind, though, remembering the fact that Weezer's success in America had never translated to Europe. Sure we'd done all right there, but we'd probably had only one or two gold records in twelve years throughout all of those countries, as compared to multi-millions sold in the U.S. Clearly, I concluded, I had missed something as a writer. My songs couldn't translate beyond my border in the way that the songs of some other American writers had, for example, Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day. I concluded that I had something to learn about relating to European sensibilities through my music. I told myself, "I'll write a new song over this Michael Gray song, "The Weekend", using his beat as a template, and see if that produces a song that Europeans will like." Gabe gave me the CD.
When I got back to Connecticut for a short break in the midst of all the touring, I set up a little recording area in my mom's basement, buying a cheesy Casio keyboard, and a small Marshall amp and I set up my laptop to record into. I ripped "The Weekend" into my computer, dragged it into Vegas, chopped out a piece of the beat, made a loop, ran it, played the first chords that came to my mind with a synthy sound on the casio, and started singing, not knowing what I was going to sing about. When I was finished with the demo, I simply muted the loop from "The Weekend" and I was left with my song, <span style="color:#aa0000">'''"I Don't Want To Let You Go" (Track 7)'''</span>.
<blockquote><poem><span style="color:#aa0000">All the times you came to me and told me that you cared
I was dreaming of happy days that we both could share
Maybe I got too excited and maybe you freaked out
Maybe I just have to call you up and scream and shout
All of my friends tell me that I ought to play it cool
No one likes too much attention from a desperate fool
Still I don’t believe that I can keep it all inside
When I see your pretty face I almost want to cry
I know it isn’t right
But still I have to fight
I have to let you know
I don’t want to let you go
I remember the days when I was stronger than wall
Try as anybody might they couldn’t move me at all
Now I fall to pieces when you softly call my name
Going up in smoke rings like a moth within your flame
I have lost all hope for being normal once again
I will be a slave to you until the bitter end
Even if it’s a hundred years before you change your mind
I will be here waiting girl until the end of time
The pain is killing me
But I can’t let it be
I have to let you know
I don’t want to let you go</span></poem></blockquote>
<big>'''O'''</big>n June 19, the day after I got married, my wife and I flew to Germany to see one of the United States' soccer matches in the World Cup finals as part of our honeymoon. I had long been asking the U.S. Soccer Federation for tickets to the U.S. matches, hoping that they would hook me up, I being a celebrity and all. But they had responded to my request, after long delays, with a list of counter-requests, one of which was to write a theme song for the team. Normally, I would be excited and honored to take on such a challenge, but in the months leading up to the Cup Finals, I was so busy with my last semester of college and with preparing for the wedding that I had no chance to write at all. Thankfully, some friends gave us the tickets for a wedding gift and I was able to set the songwriting challenge aside. Later that year, my creative mind turned back to the challenge and I started writing, but now my mood was far different from before the Cub. Now I had just come out of the abysmal experience of the team getting eliminated in the first round, of scoring only one goal in the competition, of losing two games and tying one. So I wrote the anthem, called <span style="color:#aa0000">'''"My Day Is Coming" (Track 17)'''</span>, but it turned out to be more sad than rousing, more bitter than confident.
<blockquote><poem><span style="color:#aa0000">Sometimes I lose my pride
And leave my best behind
And everybody has a good laugh
But still I understand
The chance is in my hand
Someday I'm going to make em believe




So people all around
Let me hear you lay it down
This is all the hope I have


My Day Is Coming
My Day Is Coming
My Day Is Coming, it's coming up someday


It ain't too far from now
I'm gonna work it out
Today is better than yesterday
My shining star will rise
And lead me to the prize
The best of times are on the way


My day is coming, it's coming someday
My day is coming, it might be today
My day is coming, it's coming up someday
And when I get the things I want to have
Will I look back on the critics
Will I say that they were stupid
That they underestimated me all along
Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley, Freddy Adu, Clint Dempsey, Oguchi Onyewu, Bobby Convey, Eddie Johnson, Steve Cherundolo, Brian Ching, Carlos Bocanegra, Jimmy Conrad, Pat Noonan, Let me hear you say</span></poem></blockquote>
<big>'''O'''</big>n September 10, 2007, Jermaine Dupri sent me a demo of a song he had started writing, <span style="color:#aa0000">'''"Can't Stop Partying" (Track 13)'''</span>. He also sent me his number to discuss where we could take the song. I gave him a call. He told me that he had noticed that the rock world and the hip-hop world were really the same: they were both all about partying. He wanted to write a song–and to find an artist to cover that song–to show the unity between these two apparently disparate worlds. He thought Weezer was the perfect artist.
I thought about it long and hard. I had been a great admirer of Jermaine's songs, especially Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together", which had been a big influence on my recent composition, "[[Heart Songs|Heartsongs]]". And I loved the demo he sent me of "Can't Stop Partyin'". It was so fun and catchy.
<blockquote><poem><span style="color:#aa0000">I can't stop partying, partying
I gotta have Patron, I gotta have the e
I gotta have a lotta pretty girls around me
I can't stop partying, partying
I gotta have the cars, I gotta have the jewels
and if you was me honey you would do it too
Monday to Sunday I hit all the clubs
And everybody know me when I pull up
I got the real big posse with me, yeah I'm ?
And if u lookin for me I'm in vip
Just follow the smoke; they're bringing bottles of the goose
And all the girls in the corner getting' loose
Screw rehab I love my addiction
No sleep no sleep I am always on a mission</span></poem></blockquote>
But the music sounded a little cheesy to me, like generic punk rock. And worst of all, the lyrics were clearly a celebration of drinking and drug-taking, which I could not sing without qualms. I tried to expand the lyrics to make them more in line with my values. That's when I realized what a true genius Jermaine is. His lyrics had seemed so simple to me, as if any seventh-grader could have written them, but when I tried to write a second verse, I couldn't manage to write anything one-tenth as good as his first verse! His lyrics were all about celebration. They were totally inclusive. My lyrics couldn't indicate confidence or joy without being at the expense of someone else. Every line of Jermaine's was so strong, so iconic, like a song title. My lyrics were awkward and strained. I set the song aside. In October, in another Vipassana course, it suddenly occurred to me that I could change the meaning of the song, not by changing the lyrics, but by changing the music under the lyrics. When I got to my wife's family's house in Japan after the course, I picked up a guitar and strummed the four chords that you hear on my demo of the song. These chords suggested sadness and resignation in the face of something ineluctable, something fated, a drug-habit, a drinking addiction. Suddenly, "I Can't Stop Partying" might be a sad thing to say, and this was the undertone which, I believed, allowed me to sing the song with conviction. Was it a celebration? Or an elegy for one lost? I didn't know. But I thought it was beautiful. And that's all I've ever really cared about as a writer. The happiness of the creative moment. It has always been mine.
________
   
   
<small><sup>1</sup>Recently, I corresponded with Amy via email and learned that she did steal a car, years ago, and she did drive the car to New Orleans but she never shot a cop and she gave the car away "to the first guy to beg a sandwich off me."</small>
<small><sup>1</sup>Recently, I corresponded with Amy via email and learned that she did steal a car, years ago, and she did drive the car to New Orleans but she never shot a cop and she gave the car away "to the first guy to beg a sandwich off me."</small>
 
<small><sup>2</sup>Quiero dinero para que puede comprar cosas buenas, como instrumentos: violinas, clarinetas...; libros de compondedores famosos, libros instruccionales; discos compactos de música clássica; Wagner, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Chopin. Quiero aprender el piano y componer. Quiero ser un componedor.
A propósito, tenemos un concierto hoy.
Siento un anhelo adentro, un gran anhelo, que necesita algo más de hondo que la música popular. Necesito algo más de hondo.</small>
 
 
Special thanks to you (falettinme be mice elf agin)
 
All songs written by Rivers Cuomo, published by E.O. Smith Music (BMI) except "Don't Worry Baby", written by Brian Wilson and Roger Christian, published by Irving Music (BMI) and Careers-BMG Music Publishing (BMI), "Harvard Blues" written by Professor Nancy Yousef and Rivers Cuomo, published by E.O. Smith Music (BMI), and "Can't Stop Partying", written by Jermaine Dupri and Rivers Cuomo, published by Shaniah Cymone Music/EMI April Music (ASCAP) and E.O. Smith Music (BMI)
 
"I'll Think About You" keyboards by Jay Buckley, drums by Fred Eltringham, bass by Drew Parsons
 
A&R: Todd Sullivan
Assistant: Sarah C. Kim
Management: Daniel Field, Blair Dickerson and Michelle Gonzales at Boom
 
Mastered by David Donnelly at DNA Mastering, Studio City, CA
 
"My Brain", "I Was Scared" and "I Want To Take You Home Tonight" mixed by Chad Bamford at Tranny Alley Studio
 
Design: Karl Koch
Layout & Typography: Alexander Field


<small><sup>2</sup>Quiero dinero para que puede comprar cosas buenas, como instrumentos: violinas, clarinetas...; libros de compondedores famosos, libros instruccionales; discos compactos de música clássica; Wagner, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Chopin. Quiero aprender el piano y componer. Quiero ser un componedor.
Photos: Laura Ann, Alice Claire, Robert Fisher, Steve Kitts, Karl Koch, Julie Kramer, Norman Richey, Beverly Shoenberger
A propósito, tenemos un concierto hoy.
Siento un anhelo adentro, un gran anhelo, que necesita algo más de hondo que la música popular. Necesito algo más de hondo.</small>
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