reWeez: "Dope Nose"

"Dope Nose" might be the absolute worst of Weezer's worst lyrics. "Says who?" you say? Well, let's ask Weezer frontman, Rivers Cuomo:

"['Dope Nose' is] not about anything. It's just a bunch of garbage lyrics."

"Dope Nose" is "a bunch of garbage lyrics," written in a tequila/Ritalin haze (yes, really).

And while the whole lyric sheet is bizarre, the main offender here is a gay slur in the second verse. Though the early 2000's were a different time (the first state to legalize gay marriage, Massachusetts, wouldn’t do so until '05), the slur didn’t need to be included then and absolutely should be removed now. That Weezer continued to perform “Dope Nose," slur included, as late as 2015 is a head-shaker.

If "Dope Nose" were a baseball player we'd say it has plus power but zero brains. The track bops, despite itself. "Dope Nose" is the career minor leaguer who shows up to the ballpark still hungover, who strikes out two-thirds of the time but still mashes enough dingers to score an occasional groupie. After floundering for a few years as a demo, Weezer called "Dope Nose" up to the Big Leagues, putting it second on their 2002 album, Maladroit. Many hailed the album as Weezer's best since Pinkerton.

The song starts with some great ooh-oohs that I unironically love (and that might be the part of this lyric sheet): 

Oh
Whoa-oh-oh
Whoa-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh

Then Rivers starts tossing out garbage. Despite his claim the words mean nothing, "Dope Nose" seems to form a cohesive narrative about, shall we say, Better Living Through Chemistry.¹ With that in mind, we'll try to arrange the song's nonsense around the ideas of escapism and mild drug use.

Debts on my head
Wasting time, Blazing dimes, on my own
Sleep Please, rescue me
Take me back to my home the unknown (Oh, take me home)

So we've set up that our narrator is under a lot of pressure. They don't have "debt," they have "debts." Plural. Much worse. They've also got a little weed, a little time, and a little need for escape. The math practically does itself.

Then comes a gobbledygook refrain. Individually, each word has meaning. But strung together, they verge on incoherence. How exactly does one, and I quote, "bust ryhmes real slow?"

For the times that nights when you wanna go and
Bust rhymes real slow Make time spin slow
I'll appear, slap you on the face the world away and

Enjoy the show flow

And now on to the prime offender. The reason Weezer hasn't played "Dope Nose" for years and probably won't anytime soon. If the band was attempting to make some larger social statement with these lyrics, we could have a discussion about including a slur. Green Day's "American Idiot" comes to mind. But "Dope Nose" is no "American Idiot." Hell, it's not even "All by Myself." By design, "Dope Nose" makes no point whatsoever. The slur is flippant and unnecessary. This verse makes so little sense, that there's nothing to renovate; we have to demolish and rebuild.

Cheese Trees smells so good
On a burnt piece of lamb Burnin' sweet, in my hand (Piece of what?)
*** Drag (pssh--ahhh) of the year

Who could beat To defeat up your man life's demands

And that's it. "Dope Nose" is a mess, y'all. It's a one-tool player; a big-cussing, unlikable SOB that somehow made the Big Leagues. One could argue that a lot of prospects need time to develop. Remember, all-time strikeouts king Nolan Ryan just *barely* pitched out of his first inning. I doubt any amount of seasoning would make “Dope Nose" an All-Star, though. Even scrubbed clean, the song is thoroughly "meh." But by removing slurs and tightening the narrative, we can at least nudge “Dope Nose” into positive WAR.²

Dope Nose

Lyrics by Rivers Cuomo
Edits by Keith Good

Oh
Whoa-oh-oh
Whoa-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh

 

Debts on my head

Blazing dimes, on my own

Please, rescue me

Take me to the unknown. (Oh, take me home)

 

For the nights when you wanna go and

Make time spin slow

I'll appear, slap the world away and

Enjoy the flow

Trees smell so good

Burnin' sweet in my hand (Piece of what?)

Drag (pssh--ahhh) of the year

to defeat life's demands

For the nights when you wanna go and

Make time spin slow

I'll appear, slap the world away and

Enjoy the flow

Oh - this dope nose!

---

1 Yes, I know there's a much better link to put on this text, that Queens of the Stone Age actually has a song called, "Better Living Through Chemistry," but don't the lyrics to "Feel Good Hit of the Summer" just *fit*?^↩
2 This parade of baseball references brought to you by Joe Posnanski's phenomenal book, The Baseball 100. A ranking of the 100 best baseball players of all time, I just finished reading it and already I can't wait to read it again.^↩

Introducing reWeez - Editing Weezer's Worst Lyrics

Rivers Cuomo & Co. have made a career cranking out crunchy, catchy guitar pop. "Buddy Holly." "Island in the Sun." "Say it Ain't So." Hell, even "Beverly Hills." The band knows how to write hummable, head-boppable, toe-tapping tunes.

What Weezer are *not* known for, however, are their deep, poetic lyrics. Bob Dylan they ain't. Consider the opening stanza from The Red Album's "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)": 

You try to play cool

Like you just don't care

But soon I'll be playin' in your

Underwear

I'm like the mage

With the magic spell

You come like a dog

When I ring yo' bell

Eesh. These lyrics are as close to the written equivalent of the cringe emoji that the English language can produce. 😬¹

It's feels like Rivers (Weezer's frontman and main songwriter) scribbles scratch lyrics while noodling around on the piano or guitar and then just forgets to change them. ("Oh shoot! We still have that dumbass bit about mages in the song? Aww, shucks. The Red Album is already in the can; too late to change it now.") Writers² call this aversion to revision "first thought, best thought." Despite honing their toplines, despite perfecting their melodies and using take after take to hit just the *right* guitar solo, it sounds like Weezer just sticks with whatever gobbledygook lyric comes out of Rivers' brain first. 

It was only by revision that "scrambled eggs / oh my baby how I love your legs" became "Yesterday / all my troubles seemed so far away."

Weezer isn't the Beatles. Some lyrics, even in the hands of McCartney or George Saunders or Jane Austen, will never reach 'Yesterday.' But certainly, we can save Rivers from mages and underpants, right?

Right?

We can try. Our first effort (and probably last, knowing how these things pan out), coming Monday, will aim to remove some suspicious product placement from one of Weezer's more recent tunes. 

---

1 And yet I STILL like this song. Goes to prove the maxim that no one really cares about the lyrics. At least in this case, Blues Traveler's "Hook" was right. ^↩
2 Especially Jack Kerouac wannabes and writers who detest the soul-crushing process of editing ^↩

Spacehog finds new success as a Spacehog cover band

Spacehog is gaining acclaim as
the best Spacehog-esqe band
since Spacehog.

Keith is Good! Muisc News

2o August 2009
Des Moines IA

Glam-rockers Spacehog, hailed as one-hit-wonders for their 1996 single "In the Meantime," have recaptured some of their 90's success touring as a Spacehog cover band. Royston Langdon, lauded for his on-stage performances as Royston Langdon, Spacehog's bassist and lead vocalist, explained the situation after Spacehog's recent show at the Des Moines Fairground.

"After [Spacehog's 2001 Album] 'The Hogyssey' flopped, we figured it was done, you know?" Royston's north-central British accent warbled as he took a sip of green tea. "We went our separate ways. When [Langdon's erstwhile wife] Liv [Tyler] moved out to LA, I started gigging in coffee shops just for something to do. On a lark one night, I started playing 'In the Meantime.' Everyone went nuts. A guy in the crowd requested 'Space is the Place,' so I spent the whole night doing Spacehog covers."

Acclaim for this pitch-perfect Spacehog cover act spread like wildfire. Soon Royston recruited Johnny Cragg to play Spacehog's drummer Johnny Cragg, Richard Steel to take up the guitar of Richard Steel, and finally convinced his brother Antony Langdon to play the part of Royston's brother and guitarist Antony Langdon. They played their first show January 13th in Berkely CA, opening for Weezer cover band, "Rivers Cuomo's Surgically Enhanced Left Leg." Longtime Hogger and Spacehog aficionado Brian Jones was at the show.

"It was absolutley amazing," Brian beamed, chest puffing under his 1996 Spacehog Resident Alien World Tour T-Shirt. "Mind you, they weren't quite as good as the real Spacehog, and they looked a bit too old, but still...Spacehog is the best Spacehog cover band I've ever seen."

Jones' sentiment has echoed across the country from countless fairgrounds, Bar Mitzvahs, frat house basements and public libraries. After their engagement in Des Moines, Spacehog takes their cover act to Independence MI, Tulsa OK and beyond. Now flush with bookings in low-rent theatres and community spaces around the country, what does Spacehog aim to achieve?

"Well," Royston confides with a grin, "We hear Spacehog is planning a renuion tour... it would be bloody brilliant if Spacehog could open for them."