Say It Ain't So

I wrote this for the Weezer Musical Discussion Forum, and it's essay-length, so I figured I'd post it here.

"Buddy Holly" might be Weezer's signature song, and possibly the best representation of a pop song Rivers Cuomo has ever written, but it lacks lyrical depth. "Across the Sea" and "Falling For You" are certainly deep songs, with beautiful little poetic nuances to them, as well as maybe the interesting chord structures Cuomo's used.

The reason "Say It Ain't So" is so great is that it combines the simplicity that makes "Buddy Holly" so accessible with the lyrical and emotional depth of ATS and FFY. Beginning with the "Oh yeah / all right," and the parallelism of the opening verse, Cuomo establishes a sense of evenness and calmness in his tone. He sets the scene of his coming breakdown with the discovery of "somebody's Heine" and his "chills." Backed by the clash of the tentative feel of the staccato chords against a smooth bassline and lead guitar, we feel the tension brewing. As the speaker says, "Guess I'll just close my eyes" and proceeds to get his mind off things by watching TV and playing with his brother, "something is bubbling behind [his] back."

With the explosion into the chorus, the speaker's two clashing emotions come to a boil. Breaking the parallelism from the first verse, Cuomo instead seemingly inverts his lines. Instead of love breaking hearts and drugs taking lives, it's the other way around. Things aren't calm anymore, as they were in the beginning of the song.

The song moves ahead to the speaker's response to his emotional explosion--how to resolve his problem. But he "can't confront" the problem. It's my interpretation that in this verse, the speaker is--rather than confronting the problem head-on--getting up the nerve to speak to his mother. While he may have a close relationship with his step-father, there's something special about the maternal relationship. This could be evidenced by the lines "I never could do / That which might hurt you." He's known his mother literally his entire life, whereas his step-father came into his life later on. Hence, "never" indicates that the only people he could be addressing are his mother and father. Therefore, the lines "This way is a waterslide away from me that takes you further every day / So be cool," are a call to his mother to make the step-father's ways stop.

Throughout the entire second verse, the sense of "being cool" is key. This correlates with the beginning of the song, with the smooth bassline and lead guitar, as well as the speaker's attempt to get his mind off things rather than to react explosively. He's tentative in speaking with his mother, because he doesn't want her to have a similar explosive reaction.

Another interesting aspect of the second verse is the whimper Cuomo lets out at the end of "day." It's almost like he's crying, or choked up, during the confrontation. He does this again during the last chorus, with the last "so."

In the bridge, Cuomo demonstrates the comparison between his father and step-father that most any Weezer fan knows about already.

The most amazing thing about this song is that Cuomo can take such a generic cliche like "Say it ain't so" and turn it into such an intensely personal song. The song connects on so many levels--the fear of losing a loved one, addictions in general (not merely alcoholism), and the emotional feeling of trying to brush your problems under the rug. At the end of the song, the speaker never seems to find peace. Rather, "This son is drowning in the flood," followed by a guitar solo that sends daggers through the heart with every note. It seems nothing good comes from just "being cool" and ignoring your troubles.