Cold and Damp

"Cold and Damp"
Demo by Rivers Cuomo
Album	Alone II
Released	Officially Released
Recorded	1999
Length	3:37
Label	Geffen
Writer(s)	Rivers Cuomo
RC#	352
COR#	49
Producer(s)	Rivers Cuomo
Status	Released
Rivers Cuomo song chronology
"Fits in the Blood" (RC# 351) "Cold and Damp" (RC# 352) (unrecorded) (RC# 353)
Alone II track listing
19 tracks "Victory on the Hill" "I Want to Take You Home Tonight" "The Purification of Water" "I Was Scared" "Harvard Blues" "My Brain Is Working Overtime" "I Don't Want to Let You Go" "Oh Jonas" "Please Remember" "Come to My Pod" "Don't Worry Baby" "The Prettiest Girl in the Whole Wide World" "Can't Stop Partying" "Paper Face" "Walt Disney" "I Admire You So Much" "My Day Is Coming" "Cold and Damp" "I'll Think About You"

"Cold and Damp" is the eighteenth track on Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo.

Appearances

• Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo (2008)
• Alone VI: The Black Room (2020)
• Alone X: The Red-Raditude-Hurley Years (2020)

Overview

"Cold and Damp" is an example of Cuomo's songwriting style that he calls "Arbitrary-Progression-Distortion-open-Strum-Intro-Melody-Arrange." In the liner notes for Alone II, Cuomo described the song as an attempt to de-personalize his songwriting.

Liner notes

By 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 "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. "Cold And Damp" (Track 18)

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.

- Rivers Cuomo,

Multiple edits of the original recording of "Cold and Damp" were released in 2020 as part of the demo compilations Alone VI: The Black Room and Alone X: The Red-Raditude-Hurley Years.

Lyrics

Though the air is cold and damp
Yeah, still you want to go
And it's hard to celebrate
So far away from home

Gonna spend my days with you
Gonna make your dreams come true
Though the air is cold and damp
Yeah, still you want to go

Though your friends are laughing at you
We can't keep you here
And your family hates the thought
Of baby dissappearin'

Gonna spend my days with you
Gonna make your dreams come true
Though the air is cold and damp
Yeah, still you want to go

Making love at the eddy
Say goodbye to every day
So in love in emotion
Satisfied in every way

Gonna spend my days with you
Gonna make your dreams come true
Though the air is cold and damp
Yeah, still you want to go

Making love at the eddy
Say goodbye to every day
So in love in emotion
Satisfied in every way

Though the air is cold and damp
Yeah, still you want to go
Though the air is cold and damp
Yeah, still you want to go
Though the air is cold and damp
Yeah, still you want to go

Known recordings

about this table

Performer(s)	Title	Filename	Date of recording	Recording location	Length	Appeared on	Notes
Rivers Cuomo	Cold and Damp	049 Cold and Damp.mp3	1999		4:47	Alone VI: The Black Room
Rivers Cuomo	Cold and Damp	Cold and Damp (2008 edit V3 RI3 V4 C.mp3	1999		3:25	Alone X: The Red-Raditude-Hurley Years
Rivers Cuomo	Cold and Damp	Cold and Damp (2008 edit V3 RI3 V4 C 2.mp3	1999		4:12	Alone X: The Red-Raditude-Hurley Years
Rivers Cuomo	Cold and Damp	Cold and Damp (edit 2 reinsert solo.mp3	1999		3:36	Alone X: The Red-Raditude-Hurley Years
Rivers Cuomo	Cold and Damp		1999		3:35	Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo

See also

• List of Rivers Cuomo songs