I wrote this paper for my Ethnic & Minority Lit class last semester, and my lack of preparation shows right down to the last sentence. It was a fun idea, but I don't think I pulled it off. Nevertheless, if you enjoy Weezer's
Pinkerton, you may get a kick out of it. This is the first in my series of embarrasingly bad papers from the Fall of 2006. Enjoy.
My goal here is to look at both M. Butterfly and Weezer’s Pinkerton as responses to and interpretations of the Italian opera Madama Butterly. Rivers Cuomo will represent the American take on the story while David Hwang will represent the East, although some of my research has led me to doubt Hwang’s legitimacy as a legitimate commentator on Asian culture. According to an interview at MIT, he was never really connected with Chinese culture, just has the physical traits of an Asian. Where Hwang is always writing about “Asian-American culture” and never Asian culture itself, Cuomo has picked a myriad of emotions and subjects in his discography.
The plot of Madame Butterfly when summed up follows: While stationed at Nagasaki in Japan Lieutenant Pinkerton marries Cio-Cio-San, a 15-year-old geisha. To show her faith to Pinkerton, she has renounced all relations with her family. Three years and one child later, his tour of duty is over and he is back stateside, leaving Cio-Cio with the promise to return “when the robin makes its nest.” Sharpless is dispatched by Pinkerton to tell her he has married an American woman, but she doesn’t seem to comprehend the letter, overjoyed at having received something from him. Pinkerton does end up coming back with his wife, and leaves the job to her to tell Cio-Cio of his new marriage. Cio-Cio kills herself with her father’s sword, leaving the child to the newly married couple.
Much in the same way while reading M. Butterfly and knowing the story of the opera one will want to point out where Hwang “failed” to accurately represent the original story, so we’ll see the same thing between Pinkerton and the opera. I don’t think that we can fairly accuse either of them for being wrong, since they were not attempting to recreate the original story, but instead were inspired by it and implemented aspects of it into their respective works. Interestingly, both Pinkerton and M. Butterfly are considered by most to be the best of both of their careers. Rivers certainly added to the operatic story, largely taking it upon his creativity and personal feelings at the time to suppose what was going on in Pinkerton’s head. It’s also important to note that this was a painfully personal album for him, while Hwang seemed to have little of himself invested in M. Butterfly, his take on the story coming across as more flippant and light-hearted.
In keeping with the tradition of surrounding a band’s follow up album in suspense, mystery, and time, Pinkerton was written and recorded over three years. Rivers started work on the album in 1993 before Weezer’s debut actually hit the shelves. He began recording demos for what he intended to call Songs From the Black Hole, which was to be a rock opera set in space. Rivers was drawing from such concept albums as Smile and Pet Sounds at the time for inspiration. While at his first semester at Harvard, he saw the opera Madama Butterfly, in which he saw many of his attributes laid out on the stage. As he continued recording and writing for SFTBH, he began working around a narrative of the opera. Part of what was to distinguish SFTBH as a unique creation was that it was to be recorded as one single cohesive piece of music, and more importantly for our discussion here, it was to be told from multiple perspectives. As the band recorded, they began laying tracks down individually for the sake of getting the material down. Cuomo’s idea for the rock opera faded, and many of the songs were to eventually become what we have today as Pinkerton.
As artists Cuomo and Hwang seem to have been star-crossed by their interests and ethnicities. Hwang, born in the US to Chinese parents, had little connection with Asian culture and admitted that most of his association with China came from his physical traits. Cuomo, who could easily be the world representative for whiteness, has always held a notable fascination of the East. He seemed a bit predestined for such things, being brought up on Hindu ashram in Yogaville, CT.
1. Tired of Sex
Musically speaking I think this is one of the most compelling opening album tracks in the past decade. Before I’d even known about Cuomo’s attraction to the East, I always felt that this song, especially the opening beat and riff, had a distinctly mystical, Oriental feel. Lyrically, we’re dropped right into Pinkerton/Cuomo’s frustration with a promiscuous, but vacuous lifestyle. The John Long Pinkerton was described early on in the story by a shipmate as “hard to comfort – humanely speaking.” This suggests that Pinkerton has a rather hearty appetite for physical pleasures, as does Cuomo in this opening track. He seems to be dealing with it in like manner as Pinkerton as well, unhappy and a bit confused with himself and his dissatisfactions. By the end of the song he’s down on his knees pleading for “true love” to come true for him.
In Hwang’s reproduction of this scene portrays Pinkerton as a ridiculous penny pincher, who lumps the money he paid for Cio-Cio-San in with the low price he paid for his carriage ride into town as a “bargain.”
2. Getchoo
This second track is hard to make sense of in light of the first, until we remember the multiple perspectives slant that Rivers began this album with. Instead of reading this as coming from Pinkerton’s view, it makes much more sense for it to be Cio-Cio-San’s thoughts. As she realizes that Pinkerton’s interest in her is serious, she begins to distance herself from her Japanese culture and cleave to her American husband and way of life. To consummate this, she has renounced the faith of her ancestors and in doing so abandoned any hope of returning to that life. In Long’s version, Pinkerton first tells her of the Christian faith which strikes a chord in her. She goes to the Christian missionary church where she becomes particularly interested in the fact that she could accept this faith at any time and any place. She leaves with Christianity in her back pocket, as a reserve in case she can never return to her family.
The second verse can be seen as a cry to Pinkerton, first trying to elicit pity, then swaying back into a joking air of just “fooling around.” This characterizes Cio-Cio’s frequent near maniacal tendencies throughout the original Madame Butterfly
In the last stanza of the song, Cio-Cio can’t believe what Pinkerton’s done to her. She’s been knocked up and abandoned by the man she thought loved her. The irony of the situation is expressed in the lines “What I did to them, you’ve done to me,” since she basically used her family for her enjoyment until they were no longer useful, then left them. Pinkerton did the same thing, using her for his own satisfaction then sailing back to the States.
Hwang deals with the description of Cio-Cio-San’s attachment to Pinkerton briefly in two spots. First is the conversation between himself and Sharpless, where Pinkerton comes across as an ignorant but scheming cad, already prepared to leave her the first chance he has. Hwang tells us that Pinkerton bought her for about sixty cents. The second dealing with this scene comes a few pages later with Suzuki telling Cio-Cio quite bluntly what a deadbeat Pinkerton is. Hwang even goes so far as to portray the scene in which Cio-Cio tells Sharpless that she will kill herself in a humorous way, with the last line being Sharpless’s “I hate this job,” as he scurries away from the distressed woman.
3. No Other One
The first line of this track certainly throws a wrench into the gears of this album accurately representing the original story. Not only can I find no evidence of this from the Madame Butterfly story, but even within the album here I see no other references to a lack of integrity. Though it may be a cop out, I think we may just have to chalk this up to the possibility that Rivers had something going on in his head that we aren’t privy to. As a plot device, it can certainly be used to justify Pinkerton leaving her, but being one that has no backing, it’s also pretty weak. The lines “She’s all I’ve got, and I don’t wanna be alone” are reminiscent of Hwang’s description of Gallimard as having never been too popular with the ladies in the past. Given that history, he’s quick to latch onto Song and the repetition of “And I don’t wanna be alone” makes us think that perhaps his attraction has something to do with an insecurity of losing this one shot at love.
The chorus, with its sweeping statement of “No there is no other one,” effectively foreshadows “another one” in his American wife Kate. The end of the chorus has always been amusing to me, because right in the middle of saying there couldn’t be anyone else, he adds “Though I would, now I never could with one.” Basically saying, I could get another girl now, but alas, I’m stuck with this one. The last line of the song is quite telling of how Pinkerton and Cio-Cio-San may have been feeling with “We’re all we’ve got and we don’t wanna be alone.” Pinkerton is away from his home and country, and probably feels that all he can hold onto is this love. Cio-Cio-San has gone a step further and severed her ties with her family to show her allegiance to Pinkerton, so he’s really all she’s got left.
4. Why Bother?
On first listen, it’s possible to hear this song as another narrative told from two perspectives, the first half coming from Cio-Cio-San, and the second from Pinkerton. What convinced me otherwise was the line in the first verse “But it’s just sexual attraction,” which Pinkerton has definitely shown more of in the time they’ve known each other. So if we assume this is another tale from Pinkerton, it seems that he’s grown a bit jaded about the whole relationship. I would even go so far as to say that this is the point where he decides that he will abandon Cio-Cio
In this section, Cuomo and Hwang are more on the same page in their dealing with the original story. Both treat Pinkerton’s abandonment with an upbeat air (relatively speaking of weezer), and the brevity of both accounts very accurately mirrors how quickly the decision and action took place in the opera.
5. Across the Sea
Probably the most personal song Cuomo ever released, Across the Sea can often veer furthest from the Madame Butterfly story. He starts off addressing an 18 year-old girl who lives in Japan. So far this works with the original story right down to the age of Cio-Cio, who was fifteen when she wed Pinkerton and much of the story takes place three years after he leaves, placing her at 18. Cuomo has admitted that this song was inspired by a fan letter he received from a Japanese girl, but I have no problem with this song being much like Tired of Sex in that it is a blending of his own life with the Madame Butterfly narrative.
In the chorus he’s lamenting her distance from him, even blaming her for being absent when he needs help. This is definitely a unique take on Pinkerton’s character if we choose to read it as such. Back in the States and away from Cio-Cio he realizes how much he needs her, but in line with his character, he shifts the blame from himself to her. At the start of the second verse in which he admires her stationary as “so fragile, so refined,” we have another moment where Cuomo and Hwang seem to be saying something similar. Here they’re sharing the Westerner’s view of the Eastern woman, as something that she may not necessarily be. Rivers has often remarked on how humiliated he was at having released this song, especially for the last line of the verse in which he wonders about what this girl wears, what her room looks like, and how she touches herself. I can’t say I blame him for being mortified at this, but it certainly demonstrates how closely connected he was with this album.
The bridge begins with another even straight from Cuomo’s own life, in which he shaved his head to join a Buddhist monastery, thinking that was the way to score the chicks. Musically, the bridge continue to increase in speed and build in intensity, both instrumentally and vocally, until Cuomo is belting out in falsetto “oh, how I need a hand in mine to feel! Why are you so far away from me?” This track, while it contains some connections to the opera, serves largely to demonstrate Cuomo’s deeply personal involvement with the album.
6. The Good Life
The Good Life marks the beginning of a series of ups and downs for our character. The next four tracks seesaw between him living it up with girls and parties, and realizing the good he has in Cio-Cio and a stable life. The latter of the two is actually characterized more by regretting what he’s done in the former. I found little to work with in this song, as it sounds a bit more like a lyric than a narrative. The chorus seems to be the most telling of his current mindset, where he feels he’s been cooped up too long, it’s time to get back out there where the action is. “I don’t wanna be an old man anymore,” suggests that he’s looking back at his stint in Japan as foolishness.
7. El Scorcho
Cuomo/Pinkerton has realized the error of his Good Life ways, even though he opens by cursing the girls who have “wronged” him. In the second verse we find the only other direct reference other than the title to the opera with the line “listening to Cio-Cio-San fall in love all over again.” During the bridge Cuomo admits his releasing of angst as musical material with “How stupid is it? I can’t talk about it, I gotta sing about it, and make a record of my heart.” His reaction to the grief he feels is to sing, and to record that singing. Hwang, if he felt anything at all about the subject matter in M. Butterfly, also chose an artistic outlet to tap into.
8. Pink Triangle
On the surface this track provides a bit comic relief as the speaker finds that he’s been attracted to a girl who turns out to be a lesbian. I found it strange that Rivers had chosen to write about sexual confusion as did Hwang and it had me wondering whether or not he’d read M. Butterfly. In the first verse he admits that “when I start to feel that pull, turns out I just pulled myself,” admitting that he’s leading himself on in some situations, putting himself in a state of desiring what he can’t have. This makes sense given the past few songs that have seen him in a cycle of licentiousness and regret. One of the most interesting points in the album/play comparison came in the chorus in this song, where the “Pink Triangle on her sleeve let me know the truth,” the truth being that he’s in love with a lesbian. A bit of research into the “Pink Triangle” yielded some interesting results. According to Wikipedia, the Pink Triangle was part of the Nazi on-body documentation of their prisoners which represented a male homosexual. Following a link over to the “Black Triangle” informed me that it was taken up as the sign of the lesbian inmates, as it was originally used to denote the “asocial.” This put a whole new spin on Cuomo’s intention with this song. I can’t help but think that it’s possibly a nod to Hwang, seeing as how Cuomo’s “lesbian” in this song may actually be a gay man, just like in M. Butterfly.
9. Falling For You
I feel that this track might be the best use of musical elements to convey a message on the entire album. Thus far, we’ve been exposed to a very dark, thick sound, but here we really get a taste of something chaotic, out of control almost. The music in this track does much more to carry the theme than do the lyrics, although there are spots here and there that help to keep us connected with the story. He admits to having a number of irrational fears that have kept him at a distance. One of these is having broken the rule about “old goats like me hangin’ round with chicks like you.” His language, while never Oriental or mystical sounding, has much more of an American ring to it here.
As guitars squeal and squawk into “I’m ready let’s do it baby,” I can’t help but feel that this decision is being made out of spur of the moment enthusiasm and passion of the moment. Which, as we’ve seen throughout the album, only results in regret and sorrow. This being the wildest, most passionate of the bunch, we’re left thinking that this may be the last great hurrah.
10. Butterfly
Our hero sounds weak and defeated in this closing track. “Every time I pin down what I think I want it slips away” admits his roller coaster emotions over the course of the album. We see a few more references to Madame Butterfly, in the title, and at the end as he admits that he’d promised to return “when the robin makes his nest,” which he knows he can never do. When he says “I guess you’re as real as me, maybe I can live with that, maybe I need fantasy, life of chasing Butterfly,” we see that though he’s lost the fieriness of his earlier moments, he’s still confused about what he needs, and even the legitimacy of Cio-Cio as a real person.
When Song reveals himself to Gallimard, G says “I’m a man who loved a woman created by a man,” he sounds as if he’s commenting on the original opera and its many spin-offs since; Madama Butterfly is an Italian opera based on an American story about the Japanese, which has been interpreted by the Chinese with Hwang and Americans with Weezer. Culturally, this story has been all over the map. Rivers has much more lamentful, one might say Jewish reaction to this story than does Hwang. Both Hwang and Cuomo seemed to have come from an Asian culture that was much less theirs than it was their parents’. Hwang’s manifested itself in his physical appearance but was absent in his actual life. Rivers has always been white as white can be, but possessed a deep interest in Asian life. His July 2006 marriage to Kyoko Ito was even more proof of this.
