Cake - Mexico

3:26 for March 26th

Cake - Short Skirt / Long Jacket

3:24 for March 24th

I’m going to miss Chuck.

Cake - Sad Songs And Waltzes

3:14 for March 14th

It’s a good thing that I’m not a star
You don’t know how lucky you are

Cake - Frank Sinatra (steelopus cover)

Another thing I’m learning with this project is the beauty of a simple song with many layers. Here you have four chords for four minutes. Normally that would bore the shit out of people and they’d be reaching for the dial or heading for the door. However, few bands layer harmonies into a mix as well as Cake, and it’s the harmonies (built from dead-simple musical lines spread across various instruments) that drive this song.

(27 down. 13 to go.)

Cake - Sad Songs and Waltzes

These are some of my favorite lyrics ever.

I’m writing a song all about you.
A true song as real as my tears.
But you’ve no need to fear it,
‘cause no one will hear it.
Sad songs and waltzes aren’t selling this year.

I’ll tell all about how you cheated.
I’d like for the whole world to hear.
I’d like to get even
with you cause you’re leavin’.
But sad songs and waltzes aren’t selling this year.

It’s a good thing that I’m not a star.
You don’t know how lucky you are.

Though my record may say it,
no one will play it.
Sad songs and waltzes aren’t selling this year.

It’s a good thing that I’m not a star.
You don’t know how lucky you are.

Though my record may say it,
no one will play it.
Sad songs and waltzes aren’t selling this year.

Cake - The Distance

Sometimes the song that breaks a band into mainstream popularity is actually a great song that doesn’t cheapen the rest of that band’s catalog; this is one of those times.

The punchy, fuzzy bass tone on this track is a thing of absolute beauty.

Homie - American Girls

Darling, I’m afraid to close my eyes when I’m going to bed
I’m afraid you’ll crack the phone down over my head
Why are all American girls so rough?
Damn a girl can’t ever hurt you enough

Homie is a band that sprang up post-pinkerton, while Rivers was still in Boston.  The notables on this recording include all four original members of weezer, the rhythm section of Soul Coughing, as well as the incomparable Greg Brown on lead guitar.

It’s been confirmed that there is an entire album’s worth of Homie material recorded (with different musicians), but the only song that has ever been officially released is this one, which was buried on the soundtrack for one of the most awful movies ever committed to film: Meet The Deedles.

This was actually a point in Rivers’ life where he was still writing and performing songs with genuine emotional content, many of which can be heard via a few bootlegs of the solo shows that he had performed in Boston at the time (contact me if you want those).  One can only imagine how fantastic the rest of the Homie material turned out.

(More info at weezerpedia)

Cake - Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps

For… someone.