The Weezer song inspired by The Velvet Underground and Metallica
Inspiration commonly seeps into the subconscious of an artist, manifesting their music taste as a result. While this is often the most sincere reality, that’s not to say some musicians don’t deliberately attempt to replicate a hero in their songwriting from time to time. Fascinatingly, both forms of influence aided Weezer singer Rivers Cuomo when he penned ‘Undone – The Sweater Song’.
The track is one of the band’s most beloved and was released as their debut single in 1994. At the time of wiring, on Spotify alone, ‘Undone – The Sweater Song’ has been streamed over 110 million times and acted as the perfect introduction to Weezer upon first release. It remains the second highest-charting effort of their career and stoked interest in the group ahead of their debut LP, Blue Album.
With their first record, Weezer accumulated a collection of songs they’d written since forming in Los Angeles two years prior. One of the tracks that had been bouncing around the rehearsal room for a considerable amount of time was ‘Undone – The Sweater Song’, material that Cuomo first started putting together as he worked at Tower Records.
After beginning his job, Cuomo immersed himself in music and went on a voyage of discovery that proved critical to his artistry. During this time, the singer began listening to everything he could get his hands on and, crucially, fell in love with Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground.
During an appearance on the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast, Cuomo revealed how ‘Undone – The Sweater Song’ was his attempt at writing a song similar to The Velvets. “I’m actually thinking of the ‘Sweater Song’ now, as you mentioned it,” the Weezer frontman said.
He continued: “I remember the moment that I came up with that riff, I was about 20, 21 years old, and I had been exposed to cool music, finally, after moving to LA, and got a job at Tower Records. I started listening to Sonic Youth, Pixies, and The Velvet Underground. I was like, ‘Alright, I’m going to try to write a Velvet Underground song’. I sat down, and I came up with the ‘Sweater Song’ riff. I was like, ‘Yes, this is so cool'”.
However, as time passed, Cuomo realised that ‘Undone – The Sweater Song’ wasn’t solely influenced by The Velvet Underground, and he’d also accidentally ripped off Metallica. The singer continued: “A couple of years went by, we got signed, put out a record, it blew up, very happy. It’s 1995, and we ended up playing at a big festival in New York City. And Lars Ulrich was there from Metallica, and I saw him backstage”.
He added: “The truth was, I was a huge metalhead in high school, and that’s really where I learnt to play my instrument. It suddenly occurred to me that the ‘Sweater Song’ riff was very similar to Metallica’s ‘Sanitarium’. If you play them next to each other, they are pretty much identical. So I had to tell him, there and then. He was totally cool, we just ran into him again, and he’s really cool”.
Much to Cuomo’s delight, Ulrich wasn’t upset by the accidental act of plagiarism and didn’t threaten a lawsuit against Weezer. Listen to ‘Undone – The Sweater Song’ and ‘Welcome Home (Sanitarium)’ below to hear the similarities.
