The Fallen Soldiers

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"The fallen soldiers" (named by Karl Koch in reference to the fact that the songs did not make the Make Believe album) are a group of songs which were recorded for a fifth Weezer album, but ultimately scrapped in favor of the twelve that appear on Make Believe. The "fallen soldiers" have since become somewhat of a holy grail for Weezer fans, akin to Songs from the Black Hole and the Homie recordings.

History

Throughout the Make Believe Sessions, many different songs were recorded, and the band abandoned some recordings in favor of new tracks. As the sessions continued, several tracklists, including preferred A-Lists and secondary B-Lists were written, recorded, re-worked and re-recorded.

At one point in the fall of 2004, Rivers returned to Harvard, leaving the other members to finish some recordings he had been present for. While he was away, the band brought back several songs that Rivers had slowly forgotten about from previous sessions such as "Freak Me Out" and "The Damage in Your Heart".

While the album grew, several songs fell by the wayside until Rivers finally had a somewhat clear idea of where he saw Weezer's next album heading. He tentatively was calling the album Either Way, I'm Fine. However, shortly before the album was finalized and mixed, the band expressed that they saw a new direction for the album.

Said Karl: "Clearly, things were shifting rapidly. After practically forgetting about the recordings from Cello in 12/03, a group listening session with Rick Rubin revealed that they loved some of those recordings after all, and in fact a slew of the fall '04 work was tossed in favor of the earlier work. Of course, most of the old recordings had never had their proper overdub and final vocal work done on them, so the band got busy in Rick's home studio (and possibly another LA location) in February, hammering out what was needed to be finished."

At the time, Geffen Records was pushing for a spring release, so the final masters would have to be handed in by early March at the latest - not much time! (Not to mention the artwork, title, etc, all of which was under way by this point too). With less than a month to go, new recording sessions happened at a blistering pace, and the tracklist was still not finalized yet. Even at that late point, more changes were being made, such as the re-introduction of "The Other Way", in addition to other tracklist changes.

Final major changes included the removal of "Average Person", "Losing My Mind", "You're The One" and "Love Is The Answer", and the addition of "The Other Way", "Pardon Me", "My Best Friend" (all a bit out of left field, and last seen in Rivers' "Non A-List Contenders" list of 7/3/04), and "Haunt You Every Day", which had always been a strong 'maybe' to that point. All four of the new additions were 12/03 Cello recordings (like "Peace" and "Drugs") that were finally finished up at this late hour."

In a stickam.com chat, Koch played a few short clips of several "fallen soldiers" songs including "Last Chance".

"Love Is The Answer" appeared on Sugar Ray's album "Music For Cougars" released in 2009, given to the band by Rivers. In addition, Rivers did additional vocals on the song and the guitar solo was lifted directly from the Make Believe era recording of the song.

In an interview in 2010, Rivers Cuomo stated that "Unbreak My Heart", a Toni Braxton cover, will be included on Death to False Metal, as will "Losing My Mind," Outta Here" (a bonus track in Japan) and "I'm a Robot".

Sound Clips

Several sound clips of "fallen soldier" tracks can be heard on the "Making of Make Believe" video. These clips include "Love Is The Answer" and "You're The One". They appear due to the tracklist rapidly changing up until the last minute and no one being sure which songs would make the album.

Song list

All of these songs have been completed, but are lacking a final mix.

See also

External links