Riverpedia archive - 08/22/2020

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Blue Dream

A song on the upcoming Van Weezer album. Reworked from 2011’s unreleased “The Ballad of the Briny.” And evil spawn with Ozzy Osbourne. Some fans were disappointed when this song was not premiered on an episode of the Simpsons.

https://youtu.be/yaGAhwLX9Jk

Ecce Homo

The title of my first full draft of EWBAITE, before I played anything for anyone. From the Nietzsche book title.

My approach to creative work at the time was influence by Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way) and Stephen Pressfield.

Tracklist: 1. Narcissus Blooming

1. Rules Of Life

2. Gravity Will Bring You Down

3. Sing My Blues Away

4. The British Are Coming

5. Semper Fi

6. Ain't Got Nobody

7. I Won't Flake On You

8. Ivory Telephone

9. Cleopatra

10. The Wasteland

11. Bless The Whole Wide World

12. Everybody Needs Salvation

13. Anonymous

14. Resurgam Fidei (later released as "Return to Ithaka")

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Anonymous:

Once a sprawling 6 minute epic, and has a completely cut intro section.

One version's lyrics was:

I don't want to call you Jesus

I don't want to call you Buddha

I don't want to call you Muhammad

I don't even know your name

No i don't know the words to say

So I'll call you Anonymous.

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Ivory Telephone:

Reworked 1998 demo.

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The British Are Coming:

Different versions of this song exists, with different lyrics. One of them has lyrics that deal with personal problems and references Boba Fett.

Alternate lyric:

Roman soldiers trying to run the show

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Gravity Will Bring You Down:

Gravity is in 3/4 time signature. Contains downward choral section of falsetto harmonies in the bridge before the solo.

Has lyrics about Hindenburg falling to the ground. Some lyrics suggest that the imagery was being chained in a dungeon.

Chorus lyrics:

Not every man is a superman

Not every girl is a supergirl

So cut your coupons while you still can

Cause gravity will bring you down.

Verse lyrics:

Mice munchin on your tasty bum

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The first five tracks relate to the eventual theme of Patriarchia on EWBAITE (relationships to father or authority figures). The next five tracks belong to the Belladonna theme (relationships to women) while the last five tracks belong to PANOPTICON theme .

Did not contain any co-writes

Was pretty dark

Had final cover art (Everybody Needs Salvation cover) and fold-out star map and a picture of the Tower of Babel

Expatriates In Paris

A song I wrote with the guys from Ozma. This one’s awesome.

Golf

I have glow-in-the-dark colored balls. My vision in low light is very poor. My best score for 9 holes is 44. I average around 50. I like to walk rather than ride a golf cart. I carry my clubs.

Headphones

Bose bluetooth. Bed = noise cancelling. everywhere else = not noise cancelling.

Midnight (Cardigan Disaster)

Midnight aka Cardigan Disaster was a song I originally wrote for the Black album, but because of the unexpected success of Africa we ended up holding off on its release as a single. It did not end up making the final version of the Black album.

Runner-Up

One of my favorite songs from 2015 is called “Runner-Up,” and, I mean, when I wrote it on piano and vocal, it sounds — the first thing that comes to minds is Pinkerton-esque, but I hesitate to use that, because that means so much to people. It sounds very like that core, emotional Rivers that an old-school fan would love, but then the way it was produced — my piano is in there, but then there are all these electronic, dark elements that sound like nothing we’ve ever done. Same time as QB Blitz.

Sea Opera

In late 2010, I recorded demos with Shawn Everett. For 2 songs I quickly brainstormed concepts to help me flesh out lyrics.

One concept featured a fictional band called "The Roaches". At 1:48 in the teaser video you can hear narration about the "old rock band The Roaches". They would have been stand-ins for Weezer themselves. A similar idea would eventually be used for the fictional band The Astronauts from Everything Will Be Alright in the End. Rock And Roll Cockroach (repurposed into Beginning Of The End)

The other one - Ballad of the Briny (repurposed for "Blue Dream" on Van Weezer): A sailor called Mortimer Collins falls in love with a woman at a brothel he visited. He brings her aboard the Resolution ship, but he catches Captain Buttress having sex with her. Mortimer stays the remainder of the night on the deck of the ship, then at sunrise jumps overboard. Drowning to death as he happily hallucinates amongst sea creatures.

There is no "Sea Opera".

Songs From The Black Hole

Songs from the Black Hole was a space themed rock opera/musical originally envisioned as the follow-up album to The Blue Album, but during the course of songwriting/demoing, the concept was discarded, and the project evolved into the album Pinkerton. Several of the SFTBH songs ended up on Pinkerton or as single b-sides, some of which were slightly altered lyrically or sonically.

Actually, most of the songs were written before I had the concept in mind. Then I tried to alter them to fit the concept. Then after abandoning the concept, I went back to the original version. For example, the first 4 songs on Pinkerton.

As stated on the April 9, 2020 Island in the Zoom episode, I do not plan on releasing a Songs From The Black Hole album, as all songs have been released on various other albums available for listening on my Spotify page.

Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori

My favorite White album song. Bridge was originally part of rest in peace as that song's verse. I gave an in-depth explanation of this sounds composition on the podcast song exploder.

Unreleased song with Julian Casablancas

Born around the same time Rivers was working with Sean Everett, he and Julian Casablancas of the strokes collaborated on a song with unknown title or acknowledgement since.

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