New Weezer Song Showcases Rivers Cuomo’s Medley-Writing Ambitions (Or Something Like That)
ARTIST: Weezer TITLE: “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations On A Shaker Hymn)” WEB DEBUT: May 7, 2008
ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: It’s a six-minute song that opens with a cheering crowd and a piano plonking out the old Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts”–and as the title suggests, the rest of the song is sort of based on that melody, although along the way it incorporates a Fred Durst imitation, a military drum-beat, some falsetto (actually, this part is pretty good, and would probably sound great as its own song), and a spoken-word break. Did I mention that it’s six minutes long? This is really not shaking my feeling that their forthcoming red album is just going to be a great big Harvard semantics project/giant middle finger to the world.
WHERE TO HEAR IT: The Hype Machine. Please, someone, click over there and explain to me what’s happening before I dare click the other Weezer song that’s made its way to the Hype servers.
