No Good for You

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Smoochicon.jpg I don't even know your name, no, I don't know the words to say, so I call you "Anonymous"
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"No Good for You"
Demo by Rivers Cuomo
Recorded 2010
Writer(s) Rivers Cuomo, Kevin Hendrick, Robin Silas Christian, John Arthur Webb
Status Partial clip

"No Good for You" is a song written in 2010 by Rivers Cuomo as a collaboration with members of the English rock band Male Bonding.

Overview

Male Bonding frontman John Arthur Webb first spoke of the collaboration with Cuomo in a Pitchfork article published September 16, 2010:[1]

Pitchfork: How did you end up working with Rivers Cuomo?

John Arthur Webb: Maybe six months ago, we got an email from his assistant or somebody at Weezer.com: "Would you like to do a songwriting session with Rivers?" We first thought someone was winding us up, so we sent it to Sub Pop so they could check out the credibility. We actually thought someone was playing a prank on us. Sub Pop got back to us and said it's kind of legit. He lives in L.A., and his assistant said, "He's around for a couple of months if you want to go over. If not, he'll be in London just before the Reading Festival," which they played. We didn't answer the email for months. A couple of weeks before Reading Festival, I was like, "OK, I'm going to see if we can make this happen." I emailed her back and asked if he still wanted to do it. She said, "Yeah, do it. Book a studio the Thursday before Reading."

We booked a studio for like four hours, and he flew in from L.A. and came straight to the studio. We were there waiting for him. He was like, "OK, so you know what's happening?" We were like, "No, we haven't got a clue." We just thought we'd maybe jam for a few hours, record the whole thing, and he could take it away with him. But he was like, "No, we're going to write songs and record it now." He had a couple of ideas, which we didn't hear in the end. We played him something that we had drafted up the night before, and he was like, "I like it. Let's do that." We just literally spent maybe an hour moving bits around and recorded it. We did a few takes, and then he took it back to L.A. with him. He said he's been working on the vocals some more. And that's everything that happened and all we know about it, really.

Pitchfork: Do you know what the song is for?

JAW: No, we're not sure. He mentioned it could be a Weezer song, or we could write a song for Male Bonding. But I think we went in the Weezer direction with it. He said it was maybe a bit too pop-punk for Weezer, so we'll see what happens. He's going to send it to us. We saw him at the Reading Festival, and he said he'll send us the song when he finished working on it. He said he'd share it with the other Weezer guys as well, and see if they want to use it or not. I think the idea was that we'd be writing a song for Weezer. It was maybe a bit too quick or something, and they weren't sure whether it worked out for them. We'll see what happens to it.

Pitchfork: Did you write something consciously Weezer-y?

JAW: We had this idea that we worked on the year before, and nothing ever happened. There was like one part in it that I really liked. I kept trying to use it in another song, and it never really fit in. So the day before we went into record, we had a rehearsal, and I was like, "OK, let's try this bit." It's been bugging me for ages, and he really liked that bit. It's kind of a chuggy bit. It did remind me a little of Weezer; it's maybe a bit "Hash Pipe"-y or something. It was weird. We didn't want to write something that tried to sound like Weezer, but it was hard not to be aware that that was what we were working on this song for. I haven't heard it since we recorded it. I mean, it was cool. It sounded really good. We all really liked it.

Pitchfork: It's an unlikely pairing because that band is so immaculately clean-sounding. That's not how you guys sound at all.

JAW: No. I don't know how he heard of us... He looks past all that stuff. He's worked with so many different people that I think maybe he just hears songs-- melodies and stuff-- and can place it out of any genre of music. I like to think he just likes our songs. It sounded very clean and like a rock song. It didn't sound lo-fi or anything. Our next record's not going to sound like our first one in that respect. I think it'll sound a lot less lo-fi, more produced. So it didn't seem like such a crazy thing to me. I mean, it seemed insane because we all love Weezer. Like, I've got a homemade Weezer tattoo. Maybe they're a subliminal influence in our songs because I listen to Weezer all the time, still.

Pitchfork: There is a basis in melody in what you guys do that isn't so far away from some stuff Weezer have done.

JAW: Yeah, I'd like to think that. Melody-wise, he just kills it. It was amazing to watch him work with that song. It came together so quickly. We were jamming it over, and he would just come up with a vocal melody on the spot. He's an incredible musician, just a songwriting machine. I'd like our songs to have as much melody as possible, and that's something we're working on, so who knows.

Though the song was never released, a partial clip was leaked onto the All Things Weezer forums on November 9, 2019. The song's title was unconfirmed at the time of the leak, but the title "No Good for You" appeared on the demo storefront on riverscuomo.com on October 15, 2020.

Known recordings

Performer(s) Title Filename Date of recording Recording location Length Appeared on Notes
Rivers Cuomo, (?) No Good for You - NO GOOD FOR YOU - ROUGH 2A.mp3
Rivers Cuomo, (?) No Good for You NO GOOD FOR YOU - ROUGH 2B.mp3
Rivers Cuomo, (?) No Good for You - NO GOOD FOR YOU - ROUGH 2C.mp3
Rivers Cuomo, (?) No Good for You male bonding rivers snippet.wav 0:46 Secondhand fan recording. Original demo version unknown.
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Lyrics

border-left: 1px solid #aaa The lyrics for this song are incomplete or missing. Can you help us fill them in? If so, we encourage you to make a move!

[...]I'm stupid
I'm fucked up, that's why I apologize
You wanted someone caring
Someone who could see the warmth through your eyes

I'm like a time bomb ticking here
Ready to explode
You really ???

Run away, before it's too late
You don't ??? but I'm no good for you
Run away, before it's too late
You don't lock the gate 'cause I'm no good for you

See also

References

  1. Breihan, Tom. "Male Bonding Talk Rivers Cuomo Collab" Pitchfork. 16 September 2010. https://pitchfork.com/news/40074-male-bonding-talk-rivers-cuomo-collab/