Sometimes I amaze myself with how little I know about some of the things that I love.
Take the Pinkerton album by Weezer for example. I listened to it nonstop for an entire summer, and well into the fall, loving the words, singing along to everything, being touched by it all, without knowing a single thing about it.
Jesus, sometimes I feel like a total idiot.
I mean, wouldn't I have at least figured out who Cio-Cio-San was?
Apparently NOT!!
So anyway, today it hits me. (I must say, in my defense, first and foremost, I knew absolutely nothing about Madame Butterfly by Puccini.) I'm reading David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, and about the second page I'm slapped by the name Cio-Cio-San. Ahh, enlightenment. So that's who Cuomo has been singing about.
And then everything falls in place. Anyone who's ever listened to Pinkerton and is just as musically un-enlightened as I am was will understand.
Cio-Cio-San is Madame Butterfly. Pinkerton is her Western husband, who leaves her eventually. And then all these songs make sense to me... "Listening to Cio-Cio-San, fall in love all over again" "Yesterday I went outside, caught a lovely butterfly" etc etc etc.
So basically, the entire album is an homage to Madame Butterfly, more or less. Except it doesn't really coincide with the story: Cuomo's lyrics are apologetic and sorry, while the fictional Pinkerton didn't give a damn about poor Cio-Cio-San after he deserted her and stole her baby. The more you know!
I think I love Weezer even more now, when the music makes even more sense to me, the writer... Wowsa! Rivers Cuomo is a musical genius!!
I wish I could write an entire album about a play that I love... How many people out there aren't as stupid as me with that whole Pinkerton thing? How many people knew that? A bunch, I suppose...
So sad that I was ignorant! But I know now! I'm gonna hang this one over my friends' heads... hehehe (evil grin)