Wanda (You're My Only Love)

"Wanda (You're My Only Love)"
Demo by Rivers Cuomo
from the album Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
Released	December 18, 2007
Recorded	January 1995
Length	3:38
Label	Geffen
Songwriter(s)	Rivers Cuomo
RC#	196
COR#	N/A
Producer(s)	Rivers Cuomo
Status	Released
Rivers Cuomo song chronology
"Defeat on the Hill" (RC# 195) "Wanda" (RC# 196) "I'm So Lonely" (RC# 197)
Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo track listing
18 tracks "Ooh" "The World We Love So Much" "Lemonade" "The Bomb" "Buddy Holly" "Chess" "Longtime Sunshine" "Blast Off!" "Who You Callin' Bitch?" "Wanda (You're My Only Love)" "Dude, We're Finally Landing" "Superfriend" "Lover in the Snow" "Crazy One" "This Is the Way" "Little Diane" "I Wish You Had an Axe Guitar" "I Was Made for You"
This song is part of the "Wanda (You're My Only Love)" lineage of songs "March of the Pipettepedes" (1994) "Wanda (You're My Only Love)" (1995)

"Wanda (You're My Only Love)" is the tenth track on Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo. The song was written and demoed by Rivers Cuomo in 1995.

Appearances

• Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo (2007)

Overview

One of my introductions to the realities of the music industry came when my manager told me that a movie production company wanted me to compose a song for the movie, Angus. I felt honored to be presented with such a big challenge, to write a song to accompany someone else's story. I wanted to do a great job. I studied the script and attained a pretty thorough understanding of the main character and his situation. He was an outcast, like me. I liked him.

I poured my heart into the song. I used details from the characters' lives in the movie, but really the emotions were mine, the incredible love I would feel for the woman, the person, the world that could accept me and love me as I was. I was bowled over by the song when I was finished. I sent it to my manager.

A few days later, he called and said the movie studio had rejected the song. It was "too literal" an interpretation of the movie. And besides, they wanted a more upbeat, rock number, something in the spirit of the other Weezer singles, like "Buddy Holly".

I was angry, frustrated, and sad.

In the end, we gave the movie people the upbeat rocker they wanted ("You Gave Your Love"), but for a long time I thought they were wrong for using it. The song had nothing to do with the movie, the characters, or the mood of the scene in which it played. At the time I concluded that the movie people didn't care about the art at all, they just wanted a Weezer rock single.

- Rivers Cuomo, Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo liner notes

Chords for "Wanda" ca. August 1994

"Wanda" is an acoustic song written by Weezer lead singer Rivers Cuomo. The melodies used in "Wanda" were written by Cuomo throughout the summer and fall of 1994. Cuomo transcribed chords and early couplets ("What's wrong with me / I'm making money") on a fax dated August 31, and a section of what would become part of the chorus melody ("Somebody, please, tell her for me") first appeared in a counterpoint exercise composed by Cuomo on October 24. The melody for the song's titular line was inspired by the ballet The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky.

Angus and "Wanda"

The lyrics for "Wanda" are based on the script to the 1995 film Angus (itself an adaptation of the short story "A Brief Moment in the Life of Angus Bethune" by Chris Crutcher). The film follows Angus (Charlie Talbert), an overweight teenage boy who, as part of a prank, is elected king of the school's Winter Ball. The titular "Wanda" refers to a so-named inflatable sex doll used by Angus to practice slow dancing. The song also makes reference to Angus' mother (Kathy Bates) being a truck driver, and his father being gay (a plot point cut from the final film after an audience member used a homophobic slur during a test screening). "Wanda" was rejected for use in the film due to being "too literal" of an interpretation of the film's script. Weezer ultimately submitted the song "You Gave Your Love to Me Softly" instead, which plays during the Winter Ball after the climax of the film.

"Wanda" was briefly revisited by Cuomo in 1997, when he performed the song during two concerts billed as "Homie" (the short-lived side project that would release only the song "American Girls" for the soundtrack to the 1998 film Meet the Deedles). "Wanda" is known to have been subsequently rehearsed by Homie as a band, though it is unknown if the song was among the songs recorded at Fort Apache Studios in Boston.

Cuomo distributed an MP3 of "Wanda" to fans in the early 2000s. The demo was officially released in 2007 as part of the demo compilation Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo. A brief acoustic rendition of "Wanda," performed by Cuomo, appears on the DVD Video Capture Device, released in 2004.

Live performances

• Homie concert: 11/05/1997
• Homie concert: 11/21/1997

Reception

Pitchfork Media gave a positive review of "Wanda" in their review of Alone, comparing it favorably to Pinkerton.

Lyrics

What's wrong with me?
I'm kinda funny
I'm not a dummy
But I'm all alone
Nobody sees me
No one talks to me
Unless they're laughing
Laughing at me

Except for her
She was my true friend
Dancing with me
She was my girlfriend
Somebody, please, tell her for me
Wanda, you're my only love

You're so lucky
Your family's normal
Mom drives a big rig
And my daddy's gay

No matter to her
She was my true friend
Dancing with me
She was my girlfriend
Somebody, please, tell her for me
Wanda you're my only love

Until the day I threw you away
Now I'm alone, and I wish you were home

See also

• List of Rivers Cuomo songs
• HOMiE - Volume 1