‘Burndt Jamb’: The instrumental Weezer song that found lyrics through Pringles
There aren’t many bands in the indie rock canon who goof around more than Weezer. While some groups wait until they are several albums deep into their career to fool about with daft songs and wacky ideas, the California foursome made it clear on their self-titled debut record (also known as The Blue Album) that while they were adept at writing indelible power pop hooks, they weren’t afraid to cut loose and joke around with playful lyricism.
While ‘Say It Ain’t So’ and ‘Only In Dreams’ from their debut album do see frontman Rivers Cuomo delve into some more serious topics of alcohol addiction and heartbreak, respectively, songs such as ‘Buddy Holly’ and ‘Undone (The Sweater Song)’ were perfect examples of how a jocular attitude would often prevail in their songwriting. Throughout their early career, this was something they were praised for – that is until things began moving southward and they allowed the frivolities to consume their output too much.
From the mid-2000s onwards, Weezer experienced a downturn in their output, and while they’ve still maintained legions of devoted fans, they’ve never quite managed to achieve the same carefree and youthful élan that characterised their earliest records, with the first two of The Blue Album and its follow-up Pinkerton still being regarded as their high points to this day. In some instances, the quality of their records has seen such a sharp downfall that people have questioned whether they could ever reach their creative peak again, and certain albums from the latter stages of their career have been met with widespread derision that most bands would struggle to pick themselves up from.
On their fourth album, Maladroit, the band hadn’t quite experienced this nosedive in quality, but returns were slowly showing signs of diminishing. While there were hits on the record, such as ‘Keep Fishin’ and ‘Dope Nose’, certain aspects of the release demonstrated that there was only so far that Weezer could travel as a band with their geeky charm before it revealed itself to be more of a shtick than anything.
The songwriting was slowly becoming more contrived, and even the occasional beefing up of their sound to incorporate some heavy metal elements wasn’t enough to persuade fans and critics that they could evolve as a group. An example of one outlier of a song from the album’s sessions that saw the band take a more laid-back approach was ‘Burndt Jamb’, which had originally started life as an instrumental track. However, the lyrics that were initially added to the song were somewhat indicative of how ideas were starting to wear thin.
According to guitarist Brian Bell, the lyrics started out as being fully improvised by Cuomo. “Rivers started off singing about potato chips, just to dust off whatever it is in your brain that comes up with lyrics. He was reading off a package of Pringles or something. I still remember that the line ‘1.5 grams of carbohydrates’ was in it.”
While the final finished product comes off as far more passable and tackles the matter of Cuomo trying to reignite a lost love, it would arguably have been more amusing to hear the ingredients of a tube of crisps being sung to the tune, even if it might have hampered the song’s chances of being one of the more beloved tracks from the album.
