reWeez: "Grapes of Wrath"

"Grapes of Wrath" is the 3rd track on Weezer's (first) 2021 album, OK Human¹. The album, a complete departure for the band, features exactly zero electric guitars. Gone are the crunchy riffs, Moog synths and wah-wah solos. In their place are an assortment of more contemplative (yet still damn catchy) pianos and strings. I know every Weezer fan says this about every successive Weezer album, but OK Human might be my favorite Weezer release since 1996's Pinkerton.

OK Human

The album's lead single, "All My Favorite Songs," scored Weezer its biggest hit in a decade, hitting #1 on Billboard's Rock Airplay charts and becoming the 4th-most played rock song in 2021. The band also released a remix featuring indie-pop band AJR, which, in addition to adding synths to the track, (rather appropriately) improved the lyrics to the second verse. 

Despite the success of "All My Favorite Songs," "Grapes of Wrath" might be OK Human's best track². "Grapes" is—somehow—both upbeat and contemplative. Even better, the song is about the transformative power of literature!

But.

The song's refrain name-drops Audible. As in Amazon's subscription-only book and audiobook service Audible. The same Audible that gobbles up books and authors and puts them behind a paywall so that Jeff Bezos can buy another yacht. Ech. As someone who believes free information, who's devoted the better part of 20 years to libraries, the idea of a band pimping Audible makes me barf in my mouth a little bit.

The Audible-referencing lyric feels suspiciously like product placement. The musical equivalent of Vin Diesel turning to camera and taking a long, satisfied sip from a perfectly dewy Coke Zero before shifting his muscle car into gear and peeling ass out of frame. That Amazon went on to promote Weezer's OK Human and "Grapes of Wrath" across its various platforms only makes the connection feel worse.

So. To quote a much better lyric, let's take a sad song and make it better. Much like scrubbing McDonald's golden arches and clown mascots from its otherwise outstanding NES title, M.C. Kids, lets get out our writers' turpentine and scrub Jeff Bezos from Weezer. While we're at it, let's strengthen the verses so they feel less like literary name-dropping and more like a cohesive narrative.

Let's start with our biggest offender, that Vin Diesel Coke Can of a refrain. It repeats the following stanza twice:

I'm gonna rock my audible
Headphone Grapes of Wrath
Drift off to oblivion
I just don't care, I just don't care

You see the problem, right? Not only are we plugging products (and not in an organic-to-the-song "Kodachrome" kind of way), we have the awkward phrasing of "audible [beat] / headphones [beat] Grapes of Wrath."

If only there was a better word...

A word to more accurately describe the act of listening to a *book* on *audio.* A word with better meter and less corporate greed. Y'know. Like "audiobook." The word that describes exactly what the narrator is listening to. Add an "of" to keep the melody's tempo and the first stanza of the refrain becomes:

I'm gonna rock my audible audiobook

of Grapes of Wrath

Drift off to oblivion

I just don't care, I just don't care

Eat it, Bezos. And as long as we're tinkering, let's tweak the refrain's second stanza. It just repeats the first stanza. Kinda boring. Couldn't we say something to really underline the power of a good audiobook?

Rock my audible this audiobook 
Headphone Grapes of Wrath like it's Megadeth
Drift off to oblivion Cranked up to 11, man
You think I care,? I just don't care

Picture it: I'm at the gym, just trying to get my miles in, zoning out to Anna Karenina. Ahead, a flock of "look-at-me" Karens are hooting and honking across a whole row of ellipticals like its social hour. I have to blast Anna at jet engine levels to drown them out. What was supposed to be three easy, slow miles, becomes the audiobook equivalent of Dave Mustaine shredding "Symphony of Destruction." Also, a thousand bonus points for that "Grapes of Wrath" / "Megadeth" slant-rhyme.

With our prime offender behind bars, it's time to round up the rest of the posse. Because we use the verb "crank" in the refrain, we need to tweak verse one to avoid repeating the word. Also: What the frick does "Moby Dick trip on a whale" even mean? It sounds like Ahab is smoking blubber to get high³. Let's get a little more specific.

Crankin' Partyin' with Mrs. Dalloway

Chasin' Ahab Moby Dick trip on a  and his whale

He's kinda These folks are just like me;

We're thirsting searching for the deep

The second verse mostly repeats the sins of the first. There's also a peculiar reference to "zombie hordes" meant to evoke binge-watching The Walking Dead. Hung in the middle of all these books, it just flops like a beached fish.

Count on me to show support

For Winston Smith in 1984
'Cause Battling Big Brother feels more meaningful and his Thought Police

Than binging zombie hordes just leaves me wanting more
Take me up Second star to Neverland,

Hanging Flying with Yossarian
He's kinda Those dudes are just like me;
We're fighting to 'til we get free

After that, the only other line in the song that needs any attention comes in the bridge: "Frodo jonesing for the Ring."

Uh. What. Lemme push my nerd glasses up my nose here... The One Ring is not something anyone has a "jones" for. It engenders an all-consuming desire for evil and enslavement. Definitely not a "jones." (At least it's an improvement on the original bridge lyrics, per Weezerpedia: "Pornhub helps folks loosen up / Medication works for some / I'd prefer a Tolstoy read...")

Frodo jonesing for Doom-ing the One Ring
Soon I'll be there smiling

Smiling in my dreams

Get it? Because Frodo⁴ throws the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom? And, like our song's narrator, like Frodo unburdened from the One Ring, our work is done and we can drift into pleasant sleep in a giant Rivendellian bed. We've made a good song better. Audible is gone. We've added Dave Mustaine (every song needs Dave Mustaine!). Even better, we've added specificity and tied each book title into a more thematic whole. Yay us.

Grapes of Wrath

Lyrics by Rivers Cuomo
Edits by Keith Good

I can feel my breathing

It's so nice; it's like a blanket on my life

Let me stay here for forever

In this state of classical denial

Partyin' with Dalloway

Chasing Ahab and his whale

These folks are just like me;

We’re searching for the deep

I'm gonna rock my audiobook

of Grapes of Wrath

Drift off to oblivion

I just don't care, I just don't care

Rock my audiobook

Like it's Megadeth

Cranked up to 11, man

You think I care? I just don't care

I just don't care, I'm barely there

I just don't care

Count on me to show support

For Winston Smith in 1984

'Cause battling Big Brother and his Thought Police

Just leaves me wanting more

Second Star to Neverland

Flying with Yossarian

These dudes are just like me;

We fighting to get free

I'm gonna rock my audiobook

of Grapes of Wrath

Drift off to oblivion

I just don't care, I just don't care
Rock my audiobook

Like it's Megadeth

Cranked up to 11, man

You think I care? I just don't care

I just don't care, I'm barely there
I just don't care

Open ear and open mind

I can see without my eyes

Frodo Doom-ing the One Ring

Soon I'll be there smiling

Smiling in my dreams

I'm gonna rock my audiobook

of Grapes of Wrath

Drift off to oblivion

I just don't care, I just don't care
Rock my audiobook

Like it's Megadeth

Cranked up to 11, man

You think I care? I just don't care

I just don't care, I'm barely there
I just don't care

---

1 That the band released their album Van Weezer literally weeks later is a testament to how bonkers Weezer can be and how crazy a year 2021 was.^↩
2 It's close between "Grapes of Wrath" and "Here Comes the Rain," the latter being two minutes and twenty-seven seconds of unadulterated joy ^↩
3 I mean, in a way he kinda is? ^↩
4 Or more accurately, Frodo and Gollum (or more more accurately, Gollum, with Frodo watching) ^↩