Thought I Knew

"Thought I Knew"
Album track by Weezer
Album	Weezer (The Red Album)
Released	June 3, 2008
Recorded	July-October 2007
Length	3:01
Label	Geffen
Writer(s)	Brian Bell
Producer(s)	Weezer
Status	Officially released
Stream	Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Spotify
	Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Apple Music
Weezer (The Red Album) track listing
"Dreamin'" (6) "Thought I Knew" (7) "Cold Dark World" (8)

"Thought I Knew"
Album track by The Relationship
Album	The Relationship (album)
Released	November 30, 2010
Format	CD, digital
Length	3:44
Label	Golden State Records
Writer(s)	Brian Bell
Producer(s)	The Relationship, Eric J. Dubowsky
Status	Officially released
Stream	Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Spotify
	Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Apple Music
The Relationship (album) track listing
"Please Help Me" (02) "Thought I Knew" (03) "Mother Night" (04)

"Thought I Knew" is the seventh track off of The Red Album. It was written by Brian Bell who also sings lead. The song was later released on The Relationship's debut album.

Appearances

• Weezer (The Red Album) (2008)
• The Relationship (2010)

Overview

"Thought I Knew" was written by guitarist Brian Bell. It began as a demo for his side project The Relationship and was originally a much more serious, solemn song. It was changed from a minor chord progression to a major chord progression for The Red Album and made more poppy. Bell was very critical in 2008 interviews of The Red Album version saying that he did not want the song on the album, but that Rivers Cuomo insisted it go on.

During promotion for The Red Album, Weezer appeared on MTV with live performance 'sessions' recorded exclusively for the channel, and one of the song performed was "Thought I Knew", which had a slightly different feel than the album version. It was performed with a choreographed square dancing number going on in front of the band. Other tracks performed on that day were "Automatic," "King," and "Pork and Beans."

Since it's release on Red, Bell has written a third version of it, which he performed with The Relationship on their handful of dates opening the Troublemaker Tour. This version was eventually released on that band's self-titled debut album.

Liner notes

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

Thought I Knew strikes me as having a sense of comic repair.
Rivers: Brian wrote that so we can't really comment on the lyrics. But I guess we can say it was probably one of the funnest songs to record on the album. Scott: And Rivers actually plays drums on it too. Rivers: I remember we got together in the war room which is our meeting room before we go record and I said, "Alright guys, what is the most scary and exciting thing we could play this song?" and we said, "Let's all switch instruments and play to a funky loop and it was incredibly exciting." Brian: It's a song I had and I presented it to the band and it was in a different form it was in a minor key and historically minor key songs in the band haven't really worked very well. We do have some but not certainly with any of our singles and I knew I had to have something more uplifting to make it work for this band and in a faster tempo so I changed it from minor to major and it still fit they lyric very well and finally the arrangement was where everyone liked it and we dedicated a week to producing it ourselves. I think it was the first track we produced ourselves on the record. Pat came up with a drum loop literally in minutes and Rivers played drums to that and Pat played guitar and we set up goals on this record and one for myself was to write and record my own song and have Weezer perform it and in other words have Pat more involved and utilize his talents besides playing drums. Rivers: Pat's guitar playing on the song "Thought I Knew" is my favorite guitar playing on the album. It's just so beautiful and it's interesting because he's supposedly our drummer but he's playing the best guitar on the album.

— Weezer (The Red Album) liner notes

Personnel

Weezer version

• Brian Bell – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
• Patrick Wilson – lead guitar
• Scott Shriner – bass guitar, backing vocals
• Rivers Cuomo – percussion

The Relationship version

• Brian Bell - lead vocals, guitar
• Nate Shaw - guitar
• Eric J. Dubowsky - keys, vocals, production, engineering
• Jason Hiller – bass guitar, engineering
• Blair Sinta - drums
• Deron Johnson - keys
• Abe Dirtner - guitar

Audio

Weezer

YouTube (North America)
YouTube (International)

Lyrics

• 

  Red Lyric sheet

Weezer version

Sorry about my past life
Sorry, but we just missed
Sorry it had to end up like this

Sorry if I caused you pain
Sorry I forgot your name
Sorry, but you left me out in the rain

Thought I knew you better then
Thought I knew your intentions
Thought I knew but didn't have a clue
Not a single damn thing was true

Sorry if I caused you harm
Sorry I'm no good-luck charm
Sorry you didn't end up in my arms

Thought I knew you better then
Thought I knew your intentions
Thought I knew but didn't have a clue
Not a single damn thing was true

Now that our world's gone dark
We've drained the well, blew out the spark
And now we're left with broken hearts
Trying to find a new place to start

Thought I knew you better then
Thought I knew your intentions
Thought I knew but didn't have a clue
Not a single damn thing
Thought I knew you better then
Thought I knew your intentions
Thought I knew but didn't have a clue
Not a single damn thing was true
Was true

The Relationship version

Verse 1

Sorry we ever kissed
Sorry, but we just missed
So sorry it had turn out like this

See also

• List of Weezer songs
• The Relationship (album)

External Links

Teenage Victory Songs entry for "Thought I Knew"