Why Weezer Still Matters

 

On a steamy-hot Mid-Atlantic July morning, a cluster of eleven-year-olds crowded onto a picnic table, cramming together to avoid spilling out of the shade of the tarp spread overhead. The sound of music wafted through the woods, growing louder, until a handful of camp counselors burst into the clearing, yelling and cheering to the background of Weezer’s My Name is Jonas. It was Weezer Wednesday. The counselors, all in their late-teens or early-twenties, executed roll call on the picnic table, asking the younger kids not only their name, but also their favorite Weezer song and album. The kids had no answer, but when the counselors turned to a group of adults at the edge of the clearing, asking the same question, nearly every one had an opinion. A few minutes later, as the counselors were herding the kids out of the clearing and toward the pool, I grabbed a counselor and asked, “Hey, Weezer Wednesday?”

“Every week,” he answered. “Weezer is awesome!”

 

A few weeks later, Caleb and I were driving in the car. I quietly hummed along as Undone played on the radio. “Weezer is so weird,” Caleb commented, “and everyone likes them.”

“Really?” I asked. “Everyone?”

“Well, you like them and you’re pretty old; but my camp counselor loves them and he’s young.”

“Yeah,” I reflected, “I guess Weezer is pretty good.”

“But they aren’t,” Caleb retorted. “This song is just about some guy’s sweater falling apart. It’s dumb.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but maybe it’s about more than a sweater.”

“It says he’s naked.”

“How does the song start? Where are they?” I asked.

“At a party with lots of people,” Caleb responded.

“Right,” I said, “and if you’re going to a party, maybe you’re going to dress up, wear a nice sweater or something like that.”

“I guess,” Caleb answered.

“But what happens to his sweater?”

“Somebody pulls a string and it all falls apart,” Caleb answered, “and then he’s naked. It’s silly.”

“It is a silly idea,” I agreed, “but listen to the music. Does the music sound silly?”

Caleb listened for a few seconds, “No, it sounds serious.”

“For Weezer,” I said, “the thought of their sweater falling apart at a party is serious business.”

“But could that even happen?” Caleb asked.

“Maybe. . . when I was a kid, I had this baseball hat that I got at the Louisville Zoo. It was my favorite hat. I loved it. One day we were hanging out with a whole bunch of people, and my dad noticed a string hanging off my hat. He pulled it and it went all the way around my hat and the whole bill fell right off.”

Caleb laughed a little, “Really?”

“Yeah. Imagine how I felt.”

“You were probably pretty sad because you lost your hat.”

“I was,” I admitted, “but even more than that, we were with a group of friends, some of them were grown-ups. I was really embarrassed too.”

“Okay, I can see that.”

“So, I was in a big group of people and felt sad and embarrassed. My hat just fell apart. Even though I wasn’t, maybe I felt a little naked. It was a silly thing that happened, but for me it was pretty serious.”

“I sort of get that,” Caleb was still skeptical, “but a whole sweater isn’t going to fall apart at a party.”

“You’re right,” I continued. “A whole sweater probably isn’t going to unravel at a party, but it isn’t really about a sweater.”

“Then what is it about?”

“If you’re going to a party, you’re going to wear something nice, because you want to look good for all your friends, right?”

“I don’t really go to those kind of parties,” Caleb replied.

“Gotcha, but stay with me. You’re going to a party and want to look good to all your friends. You don’t just dress up, you act up. You pretend to be cool, or smart, or whatever.”

“Okay,” Caleb started to follow, “this is more about going to a wedding or something.”

“Sure, anywhere there are people you want to impress. For Weezer, those people are other young people at a big party.”

“Okay.”

“But just like a nice sweater is special - you don’t actually dress that way all the time - the way you act isn’t necessarily how you really are all the time. You’re faking it a little bit.”

“You’re pretending to be cooler than you are,” Caleb said.

“Exactly! And if you’re pretending, then your whole act, your whole show, is weak. It’s got a flaw. It’s got a string dangling down.”

“And. . . somebody can just pull a string and make you stop thinking you’re cool?”

“Think about it this way, if you’re a teenager and going to a party, who’s going to be there?”

“Probably all the kids from school?” Caleb answered.

“Sure,” I replied, “If it’s a big party, maybe kids from a bunch of schools. You show up and you want to look cool, but all it takes is one person who remembers that time you peed your pants in 3^rd grade, or knows that your mom still keeps your collection of Beanie Babies, or-“

“What are Beanie Babies?” Caleb interrupted.

“Never mind,” I said, “It’s just one of those things big kids want to make sure other kids never find out about. All it takes is one person at that party to pull on that string, and what happens?”

“You whole sweater falls apart.”

“Right, your whole show is undone, unraveled on the floor, and you’re naked.”

“Right. . .” Caleb pondered.

“For Weezer, is a big group of people a safe place?”

“No,” Caleb answered.

“Now, listen to this song.” At a stop light, I pulled up Spotify on my phone and began to play In the Garage. “What kind of stuff does he say he owns.”

“Oh!” Caleb exclaimed, “A dungeon master’s guide. . . a twelve-sided die. . . It’s Dungeon’s and Dragon’s stuff!”

“Right, and who plays Dungeons and Dragons?”

“Well,” Caleb hesitated, “kids who are a little. . .”

“Nerds!” I yelled.

“Yeah, okay” Caleb agreed.

“So,” I explained, “all these songs come off of Weezer’s blue album that came out in the beginning of the 1990s. Think about some of the 80s movies we’ve seen, like Rocky. What happens in Rocky?”

“Rocky just beats up some big Russian guy, or maybe some other guy.”

“Big muscle guys just fighting.”

“Yeah.”

“What about Top Gun?”

“Maverick shoots down a bunch of jets.”

“Super cool guy on a motorcycle breaks all the rules, gets the girl, and wins the war.”

“Yeah.”

“Karate Kid?”

“Weak kid gets learns karate and beats up the mean kid.”

“So, imagine,” I went on, “you’re a kid who isn’t big and strong with rippling muscles. You don’t play sports, you play Dungeons and Dragons. You like to make up songs about sweaters. What happens to you.”

“Oh,” Caleb said, “You get picked on a lot.”

“Maybe that’s the string in your sweater.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“Listen to the chorus, ‘In the garage, I feel safe. No one cares about my ways. In the garage where I belong, no one hears me sing this song.’ So, for Weezer a party isn’t a safe place, but the garage is, because that’s where they can be themselves without worrying about someone destroying their sweater.”

“But we don’t hang out in our garage,” Caleb objected.

“No, but where do you hang out?” I asked.

“The basement.”

“Just like the sweater, the garage doesn’t have to be a garage. It could be anywhere you feel like you can be yourself. Like when all your buddies come over and you play Heroscape.”

“Okay.”

“So imagine you’re a kid in my generation who grew up on all those 80s movies and stuff, which are great, but that just isn’t you. You’re hanging out in your garage, or basement, or wherever; singing songs, or writing stories, or playing fantasy games. Then the 90s come along and Weezer puts out this blue album. Suddenly, you don’t feel alone anymore. You realize that there are a lot of other kids out there just like you, hiding in their garage doing the things you do. . . and some of them are in a band, and that band is cool.”

“Wow, yeah.” Caleb said, “That was probably pretty cool.”

“But it wasn’t cool,” I responded. “It is cool. Tell me about your camp counselor.”

“Oh, he was super funny,” Caleb said with a smile. “He’d make up all of these crazy stories about why we needed to learn a specific skill. Like, we had to learn to make fire so we could create distractions for the police while we robbed the bank; or if we didn’t use the buddy system we’d get lost in the woods and kidnapped by bears with AK-47s.”

“So. . . does his sweater have a string?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Caleb thought, “I guess it does.”

“Everyone’s does,” I said. “I don’t know if you noticed, but your counselor also had a speech defect.”

“Oh. . . I thought he talked funny on purpose.”

“No.” I let him think for a minute. “So, you’re a kid who loves going out in the woods and doing nature stuff. You love making up crazy elaborate stories about it. And you talk funny. Where do you feel safe?”

“Probably in my garage,” Caleb admitted.

“Probably,” I agreed, “but one day you’re out in the garage and you find this blue album in your parents’ old CD collection, and it’s a bunch of kids who feel just like you; and maybe you realize that your parents bought that CD. . . and kept it. Suddenly you aren’t alone, maybe you realize you’re pretty normal, and you decide to be a camp counselor and share what you found with younger kids.”

“Weezer Wednesday!” Caleb exclaimed.

“Because Weezer is awesome.”