Mental Slipping!

Rivers Cuomo “My Brain Is Working Overtime”

Rivers Cuomo was a guest on Fresh Air with Terry Gross last week. It’s a very interesting interview. He’s very candid, and as strange as he can be, he comes off as being mostly quite unaffected and clear-headed. One thing that is apparent upon listening to him talk about all these different phases of his life and career is that he’s the kind of dude who feels compelled to take his every pursuit to a logical extreme. He seems to fundamentally reject the notion of doing anything halfway, and I greatly admire that about him, even when it leads to either creepy extremes in his personal life, or over-embracing the notion of democracy and collaboration to the point that it sidelines his own worthwhile efforts from Weezer albums in favor of less compositions by his band mates.

Anyway, one of the more interesting things for me came near the end of the interview, just after Terry plays a clip from “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived,” and slips up by referring to it as “The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived.” Cuomo is quick to correct her, noting that he intentionally made the title phrase grammatically incorrect because it “sings better.” He’s correct too — just try singing the song each way, and it becomes very clear that while “who” fits the meter, it does not sound as good, and the slight percussive sound from hitting the second t in “that” just feels better as the words form in your mouth.

The fact that Cuomo is very conscious of this sort of thing is telling, particularly in light of how simplistic his language has become in his later works. This isn’t to say that he was at any time especially clever or wordy, but more to highlight that especially on Make Believe, his lyrics seem designed to be as melodically aerodynamic as possible, often at the expense of anything that would be normally recognized as “good” writing.

I’m not clear on when “My Brain Is Working Overtime” was written, but it certainly seems to fit in with this type of thinking. The language is incredibly plain, and the focus of the writing is clearly placed on following the melody and expressing a simple, highly relatable sentiment. There is no poetry to this at all, but I do appreciate its economy, and emphasis on clarity. The words hardly matter, to be honest — all of the charm in the song comes through in its hooks, which may be somewhat familiar and predictable, but are nonetheless very well-crafted and enjoyable, like most quality Weezer tunes.

Buy it from Amazon.