Weezer's Pinkerton turns 20.

Weezer’s classic Pinkerton album has turned 20. More below.

Quick ‘Pinkerton’ Facts:

• Rivers wrote Pinkerton whilst attending Harvard.
• Pinkerton was initially panned by critics.
• Cuomo suffered from depression and was recovering from painful leg surgery while recording.
• Last album to feature bassist Matt Sharp.

1. “Tired of Sex”

• Partially inspired by the Pinkerton character in Madame Butterfly.
• Rivers has been known to refrain from sex for years on end.

• Rivers singing about relationship troubles.

3. “No Other One”

• This is the last song Rivers wrote before becoming famous.
• It is a hypothetical story of Rivers’ dating a drug addict.

4. “Why Bother?”

• Lyrically. Rivers figures it isn’t worth chasing girls/having sex because it just leads to heartbreak.
• First Weezer track without Rivers doing guitar solo, Brian Bell recorded it instead.

5. “Across the Sea”

• This song is a response to a letter from a Japanese fan (whom he still hasn’t met).
• Rivers’ wrote this at peak depression.

6. “The Good Life”

• Pinkerton’s second single and didn’t do as well as expected considering its extremely catch chorus.
• Partly about Rivers’ brutal leg surgery. “Broken, beaten down, Can’t even get around, Without an old-man cane”

7. “El Scorcho”

• Rivers allegedly wrote this about a Harvard classmate he secretly loved.
• The lines “Watching Grunge Leg-drop New Jack through a press table” and “Listening to Cio-Cio San, fall in love all over again.” were taken from a Harvard classmate’s essay homework.
• Song titled was inspired by Del Taco’s hot sauce.

8. “Pink Triangle”

• The song is about the time Rivers fell in love with a girl not knowing she was a lesbian.
• Bassist Matt Sharp couldn’t make the recording so Scott Reibling plays on this as a fill-in.

9. “Falling for You”

• Asian language talking at the beginning was a happy accident in studio when the recording gear picked up a radio station.
• Lyrically it is another fearful, desperate, paranoid love song.

10. “Butterfly”

• Weezer’s only completely all-acoustic official recording.
• Many hardcore Weezer fans point to this as Pinkerton’s best song.

BONUS

Mini-doc on The Making Of Pinkerton.

Classic ‘Pinkerton-era’ Weezer Much Music performance and interview.

Rivers reads from his Pinkerton Diaries

Happy 20-years Pinkerton!