American Girls: Difference between revisions

"American Girls" was first recorded by Rivers Cuomo on his DA-88 machine in September of 1997, while living in Boston. When asked about his songwriting structure in an e-mail correspondence in [[2001]], Cuomo responded: "Round about the time I wrote American Girls, I started getting interested in what one of my professors calls "Strophic" composition: where one verse is essentially the same as the last. I think this form produces less "emotional" music, but the masters of the form, including the Beatles and Nirvana, don't seem to let their listeners down with it. I'll admit I haven't found a way to pull it off yet." [https://web.archive.org/web/20080603104847/http://www.members.shaw.ca/ridd2/correspondence/matt.html]

Following the departure of [[Matt Sharp]] from Weezer, Cuomo began performing shows around Boston as both Weezer "try-out" shows as well as shows under his new side-project, [[Homie]]. "American Girls" was first performed live at [[Rivers Cuomo concert: 10/08/1997 - Cambridge, MA|the first of these "try-out" shows]] at a club in Cambridge in October of [[1997]]. At this show, Cuomo introduced the song by saying that it was about "how American girls can be kinda rough sometimes." Cuomo was joined by future Weezer bassist [[Mikey Welsh]] on bass, [[Kevin Stevenson]] (of the band The Shods) on guitar, and [[Zeph Courtney]] (of Chevy Heston and Stompbox) on drums. The group also played it at [[Rivers Cuomo concert: 10/??/1997 - Cambridge, MA|another show]] that same month, and one additional time at [[Homie concert: 11/21/1997 - Cambridge, MA|the second of two Homie shows]] on [[November 21]]. These live performances are sometimes referred to my fans as the "hard rock" or "rocked out" version of the song, in contrast to the slowed-down ballad form of the ''Meet the Deedles'' release.

A new version of "American Girls" was recorded in Boston for the [[Meet the Deedles Soundtrack|soundtrack to the film ''Meet the Deedles'']], released [[March 24]], [[1998]]. Though it is technically attributed to Homie, "American Girls" was the [[:Category:Book-end tracks|final recording]], to date, to feature the Weezer line up of [[Rivers Cuomo]], [[Matt Sharp]], [[Brian Bell]], and [[Pat Wilson]]. The recording also features instrumentation from [[Yuval Gabay]] and [[Sebastian Steinburg]] of Soul Coughing, guitar by [[Greg Brown]] of the band Cake, and additional vocals from Cuomo's childhood friends [[Justin Fisher]] and [[Adam Orth]] as well as Geffen A&R representative [[Todd Sullivan]].