Alone liner notes

The following is a transcript of Rivers Cuomo's liner notes for his first officially-related demo compilation, Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo.

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Transcript

By Christmas 1990, I had wheedled my mother, finally, into co-signing for a credit card and bought a Tascam 688 home recording unit and began a steady stream of demo-making that has continued in various forms, on various machines, and in various locations around the world, until the present time and place, October 2007, in my home in Los Angeles, where I make demos on the Dell laptop computer on which I am now writing.

When I make a record with Weezer, recording is a public process. I've got the band there, of course, sometimes a producer, always an engineer, one or two assistant engineers, pizza delivery guys, etc. But my demo recordings were made, for the most part, in solitude, with me trying to figure out where to plug things in, how to turn things on, how to get semi-decent sounds out of things, how to not blow things up, and with me being totally unafraid of what anyone would think because no one was there. I was freestyling it. Therefore, some very inspired moments occured. However, for this reason I also let things slide that I would be less likely to let slide on a Weezer record, botched lyrics, out of tune vocals, sloppy drumming. I wasn't thinking that any of this would be on a record some day, listened to by millions–okay, maybe thousands...or hundreds–of people. But I've always loved these recordings for what they are, not a polished studio album, but the creative sounds someone makes when they think they're alone.

OOH. Fall 1992
I called 1-800-2-LA-RIDE, the RTD info line, and figured out how to get downtown on the bus. For the amazing low price of a dollar I got on the Blue Bus right by my house and went all the way downtown (on the highway) and was dropped off in front of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. For five dollars I bought a student rush ticket and was seated in the center of the second row for the debut performance of the L.A. Philharmonic's new conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen. They played Mahler's Third symphony and my mind was blown.

I resolved to do this pretty regularly from then on.

I also resolved to incorporate the more complex arrangements and countermelodies of classical music in my rock songs. So I wrote this little vocal piece as an exercise. It's a rip-off of Smetana's Moldau but what can you do.

On this recording you can hear me snapping my fingers very gently in the background to keep all my vocal takes somewhat in line (that approach didn't work very well). Soon I would start using a click track on my demos.

THE WORLD WE LOVE SO MUCH.
February, 1992
I took some time out from writing my own songs and from collaborating with Pat to record one of Gregg Alexander's songs. I was in love with the over-the-top personal emotionalism of his vocal performances and lyrics. I pictured him at sixteen, breaking down in his dark little vocal booth, crying as he was singing his songs, which was pretty much how he was presented in the CD booklet. Gregg Alexander's music was a beacon leading me towards more personal emotionalism in my own art.

I was subletting a room from another musician who had taken off to Australia for a while. He had left behind a nylon string acoustic guitar, which I happily used to record this song, and a bunch of ineffectual acoustic foam on the walls. I dreaded the thought of being heard while I was emoting like this so I embraced the illusion of privacy provided by the foam.

LEMONADE Spring, 1993
Did everyone else's mom tell them the lemonade story? If life gives you lemons make lemonade. In my case, the lemonade I was making was my recent songs ("Say it ain't So", "No one Else", etc.).

I went on a round-the-country trip on Amtrak over Christmas. I had a tape of the music for "Lemonade" with me, written and performed by Pat, and I wrote the lyrics on the train after stopping at my mom's in Connecticut. I recorded the vocal in the garage when I got back home to Los Angeles.

As with most of the tracks that Pat and I recorded, this one descends into chaos at the end.

Would you like some lemonade?
No this ain't no Minute Maid
Just today I picked them fresh
From the tree that I love best
Couldn't let them rot away
Like my father used to say

Oh, happy day,
Lemonade
Happy day

Long ago I didn't know
Didn't care and couldn't grow
On my way in such a fuss
Passed the tree to catch the bus
'Til the day I couldn't pass
Fallen lemons in my path
So with my mom I now agree
And use the lemons life gives me

Oh, happy day,
Lemonade
Happy day
Oh, lemonade
Happy day
Hey, lemonade
Happy day

Hard times come to me
Hard times come to me
Hard times come to me

Oh, lemonade

THE BOMB. Fall, 1992
As much as I had loved rap music and funk in recent years, it seemed like Weezer's sound was evolving in quite the opposite direction, towards uber-white non-funkiness. In fact, any attempt by any white musician to play anything remotely "black" or funky struck Matt and me, with out new ultra-refined sensibility, as "bad style." We cringed with embarrassment and disgust whenever we saw a white person trying to rap or be funky in earnest. White people shouldn't try to be funky was the underlying belief.

But I loved rap music. And so I recorded this cover of one of Ice Cube's songs.

I really had no idea how to sing it. I couldn't take my rap voice seriously so I kind of gave it a Beastie Boys scream and hid behind a wall of distortion.

I believed that nothing could come of musical explorations like this but it was still really fun to do.

BUDDY HOLLY. June 1993
I was in the Santa Monica College Choir and I met a kid named Steve Graff who lent me his Korg Keyboard. Inspired by its goofy synth sounds, I decided to write some new-wave influenced songs.

The chorus melody, though, I came up with as I was walking through the lawns of the campus. The melody was in time to my steps: "ooo-we-ooo I look just like Buddy Holly." The lyrics I struggled with, trying to find the right reference point. An early version read, "ooo-we-ooo you look just like Ginger Rogers. Oh-oh I move just like Fred Astaire."

The life-situation that inspired the lyric was an incident in which the Weezer guys were making fun of my friend Kyung He (also in the Santa Monica College Choir). They were the "homies dissin' my girl".

I rarely wrote lyrics about tension between me and the guys in the band because I thought it would be awkward for us all to perform those songs together. In this case, though, it didn't seem like a big deal.

Obviously, this track is kind of slow compared to how it ended up on the Weezer record. [Even on the Weezer record we recorded it pretty slow. We sped it up during mastering.] I've always like big, fat, heavy guitar sounds and when I write a song with a sound like that I end up digging in and playing real slow. It isn't 'til we hear a song back on tape that we realize, "hey, that's a little dirgy."

What's with these homies, dissin' my girl?
Why do they gotta front?
What did we ever do to these guys
That made them so violent?

Woo-hoo, but you know I'm yours
Woo-hoo, and I know you're mine
Woo-hoo, and that's for all time

Oo-wee-oo I look just like Buddy Holly
Oh-oh, and you're Mary Tyler Moore
I don't care what they say about us anyway
I don't care 'bout that

Don't you ever fear, I'm always near
I know that you need help
You're tongue is twisted, your eyes are slit
You need a guardian

Bang! Bang! a knock on the door
another big band and you're down on the floor
Oh no! What do I do?
Don't look now but I lost my show
I can't run and I can't kick
What's a matter babe are you feelin' sick?
What's a matter, what's a matter, what's a matter you?
What's a matter babe, are you feelin' blue? oh-oh!

CHESS. May, 1993
In 1992, I had written about half the songs that would end up on The Blue Album, including "the Sweater Song" and "Say It Ain't So". It was clear that we were going to get a record deal and make a record. But then the songs stopped coming. I felt more and more pressure to write the rest of the record, to write top notch Weezer-style songs. Finally, I shook off all expectations, from both myself and from everyone else, and let myself write whatever came naturally upon strumming a D major chord over and over on an acoustic guitar. The result was "Chess". I knew it wouldn't work for Weezer, but it at least got me creating again and having fun. Within two months, I wrote the rest of the songs for The Blue Album.

The "Sex and drugs and Rock and Roll" line I got from a song I happened to hear one night out on the town in which the singer says "sex and drugs and rock and roll" over and over with a British accent. I thought it was kind of weird so I wanted to use it. [I just looked it up online and learned that the song is by Ian Dury.]

Chess is such a difficult game
With so many pieces
So many squares where you can go
So few promises

Never you mind all the others
Anticipating your next move
I know it's hard cause you got a lot to do

Street signs and traffic lights ever confusing the issue
Stop left, go right, no U-turn, where's the goddamn exit?
Never you mind all the others
Influencing your next move
I know it's hard cause you got a lot to prove

La, la, la, La, la, la
La, la, la, La, la, la

Sex and drugs and rock and roll
the pieces lie right before you
This puzzle can't be done wrong
So come on while you can

Never mind you all the others
Anticipating your next move
Never you mind all the others
Never mind what they do

Don't let them get you down cause if they do
You'll be trapped forever under their show
Here is a paint brush so go
I know it's hard cause you got a lot to do

LONGTIME SUNSHINE. January, 1994
In the midst of struggling to make it as a rock star in Los Angeles, I started longing for the safety, peace, quiet, simplicity, and family structure of my New England childhood. I thought back to one of my favorite memories, lying in the bottom bunk, my brother in the top, in our bedroom in our farmhouse in Eastford, Connecticut, in the hot, hot, summer, 7, 8 p.m., sun still up, but having to go to sleep because it's our bedtime, one of those big box fans blowing, and my parents, Ma and Steve, sitting at our bedside, singing an old hippie song to us, to calm us down and ease us into sleep, "May the Longtime Sun Shine Upon You."

I borrowed the hook phrase from this song and set about writing my own song to capture my feelings of loss and longing. I wrote it on my mom's piano when I was back in Connecticut at Christmas. My mom had a piano because I told her that the house seemed too quiet and I was worried about her living in silence, all alone after my step-dad left. So that is how "Longtime Sunshine" came to exist.

When I recorded this track, I had just bought a clarinet and figured out how to play a few notes. Because of my poor embouchure it sounds very much like a kazoo.

Sometimes I wanna' pack it all up,
Get on a bus and move to Vermont
Or Maine, or any of those states back East
that I remember

Sometimes I wanna go back to school
An east coast college with some history
I'd be satisfied, I know, in the simple things

Longtime sunshine, longtime sunshine upon me

Sometimes I wanna build a house
With a woodstove or a fireplace
In the middle of the living room, an old piano

Sometimes it don't seem so bad
To settle down with a good woman
Leave this lonely life behind forever and ever

Longtime sunshine, longtime sunshine upon me
Longtime sunshine, longtime sunshine upon me

Sometimes I wanna get in the car,
Close my eyes and drive real fast
Keep on going 'til I get someplace where I can truly rest

Longtime sunshine, longtime sunshine upon me
Longtime sunshine, longtime sunshine upon me

BLAST OFF. 1995
The success of Weezer's first album stirred up a lot of mixed feelings in me-- "Yay, I'm happy" as well as "I'm not sure this is the life I want to lead." I set about exploring and expressing those feelings in a rock musical called Songs from the Black Hole.

I had the perfect opportunity to work on this project when Matt had to go back to the United States because of a family emergency leaving the rest of Weezer in Hamburg, Germany, in the middle of a tour, with nothing to do for a week. Karl and I rode the subway to a studio every day in the outskirts of the city. [Today, we still remember some of the subway stops that were called out by the monotone, automated, male German voice: "Kristuskirche... Osterstrasse."]

At the studio, I recorded "Blast Off" which I had re-worked and expanded from a 1993 songlet "Negativland". The song was to be sung by the four male lead characters in the musical, Jonas (me), Wuan (Brian), Dondó (Matt), and our mechanoid M1 (Karl). MI's part I sang with a vocoder. The song expresses the characters' different feelings about heading out on space mission, or, in other words, my different feelings about heading out on tour and up the charts with a rock band.

From my 1995 notebook:

The Black Hole synopsis
Act I
10 May 2126
Scene I (The Main Deck)
Betsy II blasts off with a 5-person 1-mechanoid crew aboard, bound for ...?
Captain Jonas feels a strange sense of trepidation that his mates, Wuan and Dondó, do not. They are simply stoked to be on this ship, partying, bound to return as heroes. Mechanoid M1 warns them not to forget the mission: ...?

[Jonas]
Blast off! Up to the stars we go
And leave behind everything I used to know
Somebody's giving me a whole lot of money
To do what I think I want to
So why am I still feeling blue?
Oh Wuan and Dondó

[Wuan and Dondó]
Goddamn, get your head out of your hands
Here's to all the times we're gonna have
Cooped up for a year with the two best-looking
babes I've seen all year

[Wuan]
Get me another bottle of beer
'Cause I'm feeling fine

[Jonas]
Go ahead, waste your head
We've got the time. I hope you don't object that I
Speak my mind

[M1]
Just don't forget the purpose of the mission
Or Nomis will get swallowed by its sun.
Each one of you is a top graduate of the Star Corps Academy
It's up to you to set 'em free
Oh Wuan and Dondó

[Wuan]
Go ahead and waste your life
on silly fears
I hope you don't object if I
Crack another beer, yeah

[Dondó]
Hold on, who is it here that I see?
Wasn't she your favorite bitch in the Academy?

[Jonas]
I don't know if I wanna lead on this woman,
You know I've done that before
She's actually a good girl

[Dondó]
Or at least a cheap ho...

WHO YOU CALLIN' B****? 1995
This was an interstitial piece from The Black Hole to be sung by one of the female leads, a character named "Maria", the "bad" girl.

The Ship Cook, Maria, walks in. She obviously has some kind of history with Jonas. Dondó suggests that Jonas can still score with her. Maria overheads this and explodes in anger at Dondó's language.

[Maria]
Who you callin' bitch?

[Jonas]
Oh Maria, they don't mean it
Don't listen to them

[Maria]
Oh, they make me so mad
And you do nothing,
Nothing to stop them

[Jonas]
Please, Maria, they mean nothing
Now you must chill out

[Maria]
Especially Dondó
He acts like he knows that he has a big thing
I despise him,
I despise him,
I despise him

WANDA (YOU'RE MY ONLY LOVE). 1995
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.

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 luck
Your family's normal
My 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

DUDE, WE'RE FINALLY LANDING. 1995
"Dude, We're Finally Landing" was to be sung by the three male leads in Songs from the Black Hole. Wuan and Dondó are excited because they are about to achieve their mission's objective after a long, excruciating haul through space [they represented the part of me that was excited about becoming a rock star] and Jonas is disillusioned as usual [he represented the part of me that wasn't satisfied with my life even as I was achieving such a momentous goal].

A few of the lyrics on the demo were just nonsense, placeholder lyrics. Below are the proper, final lyrics, from my notebook.

ACT II 327 days later

[Wuan]
Dude

[Dondó]
Dude!

[Wuan]
Dude!

[Jonas:]
What?

[Wuan and Dondó:]
Good news, good news, good news!

[Jonas, Wuan and Dondó:]
What's so damn important
(Now we're finally landing)
that you feel that
(M1's started scanning)
it's necessary to interrupt me
(For a possible source of the distress call we received)
in my pod

Now we're finally landing
Now we're finally landing
Get your stuff together
'Cause now we're finally going to land

[Wuan and Dondó:]
Good news, good news, good news!
Good news, good news, good news!
Good news, good news, good news!

[Jonas:]
So who gives a damn?

SUPERFRIEND. 1995
"Superfriend" is from Act I. It's a conversation between Jonas and Laurel, after Jonas has slipped again with Maria.

[Jonas]
What the hell am I doing
Thinking with my willy?
Knowing I don't love her
I tell her no,
Then kiss her toes

[Laurel]
What the heck are you doing?
Leading on that poor girl
I know there's something better
Deep in you
Now let it through

[Jonas and Laurel:]
Pain, pain, go away
Come again, another day
Cuz I got a friend tonight
A super friend to make things right

[Jonas:]
I'll turn away from weakness
and turn to something better
Show me how to live right
I never noticed you
But now I worship you

[Laurel]
Don't be talking silly
Save the sweets for the young girls
You can talk for real to me
Close your eyes
And leave the lies

[Jonas and Laurel:]
Pain, pain, go away
Come again, another day
Cuz I got a friend tonight
A super friend to make things right

LOVER IN THE SNOW. 1997
Songs from the Black Hole morphed into Pinkerton, which maintained an emphasis on personal, dramatic narrative and symphonic development, along the lines of Puccini. After that album came out, I started looking for a new, more minimalistic, less personal style.

One of the first things I tried was fantasy based songs--imagining a Romantic, flowery, tragic, and/or mystical setting and then describing it with words and music. Thats how I wrote "Lover in the Snow", with lines like "deep in the shady glen."

I was amazed that this song seemed to be just as powerful and emotional as my personal songs, even though it was all fantasy, an imagined experience that never happened.

I wanna know, what were you doing with my friend?
Out in the eve, deep in the shady glen I saw you,
Lying with him, down in the snow,
Letting him do all of the things that he wants to

What does he do?
What does he do to you that's so nice?

And how does it feel
When he takes your hand and kisses it twice?
Lying with you, down in the snow,
Letting him do all of the things that he wants to

(Come on come on come on, I feel it)
So you laugh and play around
(Come on come on come on I see it)
You fall and hit the ground
(Come on come on come on I feel it)
You think I'll never know
(Come on come on come on I see it)
Your lover in the snow

Letting him fill you up with his wine
Letting him flatter you with his line
Letting him put you down in the snow
Taking him in and letting me go
It hurts for me to see you so
And I can't take you back no more
Lover in the snow.

I wanna know, what were you doing with my friend?
Out in the eve, deep in the shady glen I saw you
(Come on come on come on, I feel it)
You laugh and play around
(Come on come on come on, I feel it)
You fall and hit the ground
(Come on come on come on, I feel it)
You think I'll never know
Your lover in the snow

CRAZY ONE. December, 1998
After trying Romantic-Minimalism in 1997, I turned to more traditional pop song forms, like verse-verse-bridge (with no chorus), the form used by most pop songwriters, like The Beatles, up until the 1970's. One such song I wrote with this form was "Crazy One"

The story of this song started a few years earlier, a time when people still wrote snail-mail fan-mail. Reading through one of my letters, I noticed that one of them was addressed from a woman who lived in an apartment I used to live in when I first moved to L.A. I couldn't believe it. I wrote the woman back all excited. It was a cool coincidence. But I thought that was the end of the story.

Then, in 1998, a woman approached me in a 7-11 into which I had gone after soccer practice. She introduced herself as the woman who had written me the fan letter from the apartment I used to live in. She was cool and chill and cute so I was instantly hooked on her.

I started seeing her very regularly, going into her apartment (my old apartment). Before long, I discovered some extraordinarily unsavory things about her lifestyle and her livelihood. Still, I wanted to spend all my time over there. I was in a particular needy space at the time and I needed a break from the long, frustrating hours in my writing studio. Eventually, her roommate got sick of me and toled her to tell me to stop coming over every night. I tried to pull a power move and told the woman that if she ever tried to restrict my coming over I would never talk to her again. A few nights later, she brought it up again, "you can't come over here every night." I got up and walked out and indeed, I never saw her or talked to her again. My power move had backfired. I thought that after a few days she was going to call me and say "I'm so sorry. I'll never try to restrict your seeing me again. Please come back." But she never did.

A few days after I walked out, I wrote "Crazy One." You can actually hear me whimpering a bit at the top of this track. I really missed her.

Crazy one, I think I'm comin' undone
I think I lost and you won
I wanna see you again

Baby doll, I'm still afraid of it all
I'm hopin' that you would call
I wanna see you again

A friend to tender friend
A heart to tender heart
A love that never ends
A love that never starts

THIS IS THE WAY. 2007
For Weezer's sixth album, I was feeling extremely adventurous again. I wrote an epic, 6-minute symphonic type of art song called "Daydreamer". After I wrote the song, though, I reversed myself again, deciding to write a straight-ahead, nothing-fancy, middle-of-the-road, urban pop type of song. I took the chords from a Mario hit, fired up the drum machine and the synth pads, and wrote "This is the Way".

When it camed time for Weezer to vote on songs to record for the album, I submitted both "Daydreamer" and "This is the Way" but I secretly preferred "Daydreamer" because it was so bold, weird, and gigantic.

Of course, everyone voted for the straightforward pop number, "This is the Way".

I called a meeting and told the guys that it was important to me that "Daydreamer" got on the record. They felt excitement and so they consented. "This is the Way" got cut from the list. Everyone around us, though, was saying "'This is the Way' is the bomb--you should really do that song." Scott, in particular was like, "I want to sing that song. I can own it." I definitely loved the song, too, but it was just too straightforward for what I wanted to do at the time. Thankfully, I have a way to get the song out now, here on this demo compilation.

And maybe "This is the Way" will end up on Weezer album number 7. We'll see.

This is the way, baby, this is the way
This is the way, baby, this is the way

You've got to question your situation
He's taking advantage of you
You're such a pushover
He's rolling you over
And all that you ask him to do

So stand up to yourself
Get what you deserve
And I will give it to you, my love
I will never leave
Cuz you're the air I breathe
And you're the heaven high up above

And this is the way that a man loves his lady
He does what he can and he never tells her maybe

The world is still turning
But you are not learning
You're letting him take what he wants
You give him your loving
Your kissing and hugging
But then he goes back where he wants

And you know that it's true
It's all because of you
And now you got to take back your love
Open up to me
I will make you see
What I have is more than enough

I swear to you that I will never let you down
I care about you from the inside to the out
Let the jokers learn a lesson that is true
It's only me and you from now on

This is the way, baby, this is the way

LITTLE DIANE. March, 2003
2003 was a period of big change for me, when I was throwing out all my expectations about who I was supposed to be in an attempt to dig deep and find something that felt really important.

I got together with the guys in Sloan, to jam on some cover songs at SIR, where Neil Young recorded Tonight's the Night. For my part, I didn't even play any instruments, I just sang, lead singer style, like Robert Plant or David Lee Roth. It was really fun and liberating.

Rick Rubin suggested we try a golden oldie, "Little Diane", so we gave it a shot. Sloan sounded amazing on this track and I liked where the melody sat on my voice. I was amazed that Sloan could come up with such cool parts that worked together so well after only playing the song a few times.

Jay Ferguson: guitar
Chris Murphy: Bass
Patrick Pentland: Guitar
Andrew Scott: Drums
Sloan appears courtesy murderecords
Recorded and mixed by Rod Cervera

I WISH YOU HAD AN AXE GUITAR. Summer, 1984
Justin, Eric, and me at a rehearsal of our first band, Fury.

I'm the pushy one.

I WAS MADE FOR YOU. Spring, 2004
In 2004, a particular style of song was calling me again, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to write melodies, giant, huge, beautiful soaring melodies. I especially liked to compose at the piano, where the melodies could flow beyond the constraints of my limited voice, and my left hand could explore the pleasures of melodic counterpoint in the bass line. I started taking music composition lessons from Bruce Reich at UCLA.

I also started dating a woman in the L.A. Philharmonic. She was the most extraordinary musician. The calluses on her fingertipes were about ten times as thick as mine and she had a giant purple-black hickie on her neck from playing the violin. She knew way more about classical music than I did. At the same time, though, she was a huge Metallica fan and had a caustic wit. But ultimately, there was an innocence about her: I had to explain to her the bawdiness in the title of Metallica's DVD, Cunning Stunts, which sat on her shelf.

I had written a beautiful chorus melody on the piano a few months before and was wondering what to do with it until I met the L.A. Philharmonic woman and then bam, "I was made for you".

I had Weezer's engineer, Chad, come down to SIR and get out pro recording gear set up to record this song. But once I started recording the vocals, I asked him to leave, because... I wanted to be alone.

Little one, how long I've waited here
Waited for so many lonely years
Nobody ever could make me smile
'Til you came 'round with your pretty style

And I will love you so, and I will love you so

'Cause I was made for you, and you were made for me
And that is all I know, you're all that I can see
'Cause I was made for loving you
And all the little things you do
Remind me who I am inside

Happiness is such a fickle thing
Nothing compared to what you can bring
You can bring meaning to what I do
That is why I want to be with you

My darling, I need you
I'd give myself to please you
My darling, I need you
I want you to be mine

I would like to thank Daniel Field at Boom and Paul Kremen at Geffen for their enthusiasm, Sarah C. Kim and Karl Koch for their support and help in getting everything together, and Pete Townshend for paving the way with his Scoop series.

All songs written by Rivers Cuomo, published by E.O. Smith Music (BMI), except "The World We Love So Much", written by G. Alexander, published by EMI Virgin (BMI) & Grosse Point Harlem Publishing (HMI), "Lemonade", written by Rivers Cuomo and Patrick Wilson, published by E.O. Smith Music (BMI) and Fie! Publishing (BMI), "The Bomb", written by O. Jackson/A. Wheaton, published by Warner Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI), WB Music Corp. (ASCAP) & Gangsta Boogie Music (ASCAP) All Rights OBO Gansta Boogie Music Administered by WB Music Corp. (ASCAP), and "Little Diane", written by D. DiMucci, Bronx Soul Music, Inc. (ASCAP)

A&R: Todd Sullivan

Mastered by Stephen Marcussen at Marcussen Mastering Hollywood, CA Digital editing by Stewart Whitmore and Rich Mouser.

Design: Robert Fisher@FFstudio.us Photos: Rivers Cuomo, Robert Fisher, Karl Koch, Julie Kramer, Beverly Shoenberger

See Also

• Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo