On the personal tip, the little line “your tongue is twisted, your eyes are slit” could mean any number of things (most obviously, “you’re a mess, girl”), but is also a sly reference to what will become an increasingly obvious motif in Cuomo’s love songs - his Mary Tyler Moore is, against all odds, an Asian chick. It’s also worth noting that while the power of this song is universal, Cuomo did not sacrifice personal detail, intelligence or musical quality in its crafting. Who needs the the 3-and-a-half minute single? This is pop perfection in 2:40.
The song concludes with a liberating repetition from the opinions, judgments and ‘disses’ of others - “I don’t care about that!” - with the icing-on-the-cake handclaps layering in, and that’s a fucking wrap. Cuomo concludes with a great big melodic shout - a reflection of the giddy joy he felt in realizing how damn good of a song he had written here, no doubt - which is lovingly doubled by an electric lead that segues seamlessly into one of the most astutely melodic and economical solos in the entire Weezer discography, capped by a squealing arc that reaches towards the heavens before landing back into Pat Wilson’s crash cymbal, Cuomo walking into the final chorus as if he came in on a cloud. Things continue as so wonderfully expected (albeit with the notes of the little synth interjection switched up), but in extending the chorus by two bars Cuomo leads us into the thrillingly onomatopoetic bridge - “Bang! Bang! / Knock on the door! / Another bang bang, you’re down on the floor!” - amidst a sugar rush of falsetto backups and hip-shaking stabs of distorted harmonics (just controlled and sugarcoated enough so that even your mom could rock out to them). The Green Album), but here it’s not a solo at all, just another little piece of ear candy to carry us happily into the second verse. And in just another 15 seconds, we find ourselves propelled into that immortal chorus: “Oo-wee-oo, I look just like Buddy Holly! / Oh-oh, and you’re Mary Tyler Moore / I don’t care what they say about us anyway / I don’t care about that!” You can *hear* the grin spread ear-to-ear on Cuomo’s face, and the vocal melody is so special, has such a goshdarn sway to it, that it makes the moment immensely danceable all by itself.Īnd then a little thing happens between a harmony of the synthesizer and the lead guitar that in 2001 we’d call a “melody solo” (ex.
#SWEATER SONG BUDDY HOLLY SERIES#
In the first 8 seconds alone, a series of remarkable trademarks are established: first, there are those chugging, heavily down-stroked rhythm guitars Rivers Cuomo’s geeky faux-rap parody that comes with a smile in the brilliant form of the opening couplet, “What’s with these homies dissin’ my girl? / Why do they gotta front?” - sung in a melody so damn good that it transcends the kitsch entirely and that striking little synth lick that had folks asking Weezer “where’d the keyboards go?” as late as seven years later.įour quick lines - all in just under fifteen seconds - and with a warm little swell of feedback, we’re into the pre-chorus, a heavenly sweet swirl of “woo-hoos,” more winning melodies, a bright and tasteful little guitar lead, and a rising falsetto line - “and that’s for ahh-all time!” - so perfect that the band could never quite recreate it live. For now, in 1994, there is The Blue Album, and there is its crown jewel single “Buddy Holly,” and boy is it ever something. Jonze is tearing up the box office with his feature-length motion picture Where The Wild Things Are.īut that’s all in the distant future. Likewise, it also happened to boost Jonze’s career into the stratosphere, and like Weezer, he’s entered a new league of mainstream popularity that at the time would’ve seemed impossible: as Weezer gets ready to release its own attempt at a hypercommercial blockbuster, Raditude, Mr.
And though the infallible melody and charming pop cultural lyrics played their part, it’d be hard to contest the fact that it was the Happy Days-themed music video - one of the greatest of all time - that put the song over the top. “ Undone - The Sweater Song” was the first Weezer song to capture the imagination of the alt-rock nation (and in 1994, it really did have enough of a set perimeter and population to be called a “nation”), but “Buddy Holly” was the first to make the band pop superstars.
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