Opening Night

From Weezerpedia
Jump to: navigation, search
"Opening Night"
Opening Night cover
Album track by Weezer
Album SZNZ: Spring
Released March 20, 2022
Recorded 2021-2022
Length 2:28
Label Crush Music/Atlantic Records
Writer(s) Rivers Cuomo
Producer(s) Jake Sinclair, Ethan Gruska, Suzy Shinn
Status Officially released
Stream Play on spotify.png Spotify
SZNZ: Spring track listing
"Opening Night"
(1)
"Angels on Vacation"
(2)

"Opening Night" is the first track from Weezer's 2022 EP, SZNZ: Spring.

Appearances

Overview


Rivers Cuomo head.png
I just had this sketch in my notebook from couple years ago when we were on tour. It was actually in the summer. I think we were way out in the woods in Ohio and there was a Shakespeare company. I forget which play it was, but I was there with my wife and we were lying out under the stars. It was so idyllic.

So the next morning, I'm doing my morning pages and describe the scene. And then a few years later, I'm writing SZNZ and looking back at old notes, and there it was. I thought "oh this would be perfect.
- Rivers Cuomo, NPR interview[1], 2022

The verse melody in "Opening Night" interpolates the Allegro movement of the "Spring" (La primavera) concerto of The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi. Cuomo indicated that it was written as an introduction outside of the narrative in SZNZ and he thought of it as an "invocation of the muse" from epic poetry.[2]

Two demos of "Opening Night" were leaked online in December of 2022.

Performer(s) Title Filename Date of recording Recording location Length Appeared on Notes
Rivers Cuomo Opening Night Opening Night shuffle reintro 2021-07-08 13.39.mp3 July 8, 2021 2:31 Leaked online
Rivers Cuomo Opening Night Opening Night l=9 new post moved to end 2021-09-10 15.18-2.mp3 September 10, 2021 2:48 Leaked online
Weezer Opening Night 2022
  • United Recording Studios, Los Angeles, CA
  • The Village Studios, West Los Angeles, CA
  • 4th Street Recording, Santa Monica, CA
2:28 SZNZ: Spring
about this table

Audio

Lyrics

One night out under the stars
One night out under the stars
With Romeo and Juliet
One night out under the stars
One night out under the stars
Have you seen this one yet?
Shakespeare makes me happy
Shakespeare makes me happy
So happy, and I'm happy to be with you
Shakespeare makes me happy
Shakespeare makes me happy
So happy, and I'm happy to be with you

We may be garden-variety
But we can step inside
Of his immortal mind
We get a wider view
Some universal truth
And when we step inside
That's when we realize
This is your life

We lay down in the grass
We lay down in the grass
For Henry IV, Part 1
And it feels so lovely to laugh
And it feels so lovely to cry
Like a personal battle won
Hamlet makes me happy
Falstaff makes me happy
So happy, and I'm happy to be with you
Rosalind makes me happy
Beatrice makes me happy
So happy, and I'm happy to be with you

We may be quite ordinary
But we can step inside of his immortal mind
We gain some empathy, some perspicacity
It happens every time, he makes me want to write

This is your life, this is your life
This is your life, on opening night

See also

  1. Martinez, A "The four 'SZNZ' of Weezer." NPR, 18 March 2022 https://www.npr.org/2022/03/18/1087173272/the-four-sznz-of-weezer
  2. Rivers Cuomo. Discord. 21 March 2022. Screenshot: File:RC_Opening_Night_Discord.jpg