Weezer - Holiday

For better or for worse, I have been a self-proclaimed Weezer super fan for pretty much 6 years now. I grew up hearing "Troublemaker" and "Island in the Sun" on the radio, and had the luck to get really into the band not too long before they would make their back-to-back comeback albums in 2014 and 2016, respectively. Unfortunately that rise in quality hasn't seemed to last beyond then, and liking Weezer is still an embarrassment I choose to bear, but it's songs like this one that make me remember why the hell I got into them in the first place (I'm trying my best not to litter this with sentimental clichés, but alas, my emotional attachment is too great).

Part of the reason I chose "Holiday" over any other song on The Blue Album is because I think it's as underrated as a song on that album could possibly get. Yeah, it's not "Buddy Holly" or "The World Has Turned And Left Me Here," but it's still a damn good song. It opens with a soaring melody that starts it flying out of the gate, bursting with hopeful optimism that mirrors its carefree lyrical content, before sinking back down on "but we don't understand anyway." Definitely indicative of the Beach Boys influence on Rivers at the time (which also shows up in the harmonies, of course). Also makes me realize how much I love melodies/chord progressions that just keep going up until finally they have to come back down, since that's present on this and the two other songs I've already talked about. I guess I'm easy to please.

The image of a guy dreaming about getting away, not giving a fuck about anything, not even bothering to pack, creates such a powerful aura of youthful optimism it makes me want to get up and do god knows what myself (me, the person who has half jokingly declared my desire to become a hermit on many occasions). At the same time, there's a certain fragility to the sentiment, since youth, like the capricious desire expressed in the song, is only fleeting. The narrator, in saying "on this road we'll never die," implies that he wants to live in this moment forever, and ignore the reality surrounding him. Overall, the theme of the song reminds me a lot of "Island In The Sun", though I enjoy "Holiday" much more since 1. I haven't heard it 1000 times, and 2. it has a lot of personality that pretty much all Green album songs are lacking in. Also, how many songs have been able to use the word bivouac? Not any others I can think of.

Rivers wrote this and "In The Garage" soon after getting a record deal, so there's also that layer to the interpretation. Viewed through that lens, the "strange and distant land" of which he speaks would be the music industry as a whole, and the possible success that would have awaited him. I prefer to think of it as a straight-up love song, but there's that.