PINKWeezer’s classic Pinkerton album has turned 20. More below.

Quick ‘Pinkerton’ Facts:

  • Rivers wrote Pinkerton whilst attending Harvard.
  • Pinkerton was initially panned by critics.
  • Cuomo suffered from depression and was recovering from painful leg surgery while recording.
  • Last album to feature bassist Matt Sharp.

1. “Tired of Sex”


2. “Getchoo”

  • Rivers singing about relationship troubles.

3. “No Other One”

  • This is the last song Rivers wrote before becoming famous.
  • It is a hypothetical story of Rivers’ dating a drug addict.

4. “Why Bother?”

  • Lyrically. Rivers figures it isn’t worth chasing girls/having sex because it just leads to heartbreak.
  • First Weezer track without Rivers doing guitar solo, Brian Bell recorded it instead.

5. “Across the Sea”

  • This song is a response to a letter from a Japanese fan (whom he still hasn’t met).
  • Rivers’ wrote this at peak depression.

6. “The Good Life”

  • Pinkerton’s second single and didn’t do as well as expected considering its extremely catch chorus.
  • Partly about Rivers’ brutal leg surgery. “Broken, beaten down, Can’t even get around, Without an old-man cane”

7. “El Scorcho”

  • Rivers allegedly wrote this about a Harvard classmate he secretly loved.
  • The lines “Watching Grunge Leg-drop New Jack through a press table” and “Listening to Cio-Cio San, fall in love all over again.” were taken from a Harvard classmate’s essay homework.
  • Song titled was inspired by Del Taco’s hot sauce.

8. “Pink Triangle”

  • The song is about the time Rivers fell in love with a girl not knowing she was a lesbian.
  • Bassist Matt Sharp couldn’t make the recording so Scott Reibling plays on this as a fill-in.

9. “Falling for You”

  • Asian language talking at the beginning was a happy accident in studio when the recording gear picked up a radio station.
  • Lyrically it is another fearful, desperate, paranoid love song.

10. “Butterfly”

  • Weezer’s only completely all-acoustic official recording.
  • Many hardcore Weezer fans point to this as Pinkerton’s best song.

BONUS

Mini-doc on The Making Of Pinkerton.

Classic ‘Pinkerton-era’ Weezer Much Music performance and interview.

Rivers reads from his Pinkerton Diaries

Happy 20-years Pinkerton!

Filed under: Pinkerton, Weezer