Songs from the Black Hole

Songs from the Black Hole (hereafter abbreviated as SFTBH) is an unreleased, unfinished Weezer album concept. A space-themed rock opera/musical about singer apprehension about rock-and-roll stardom, SFTBH was originally envisioned as the follow-up album to Weezer's eponymous debut album but, over the course of songwriting and demoing, the concept was discarded, and the project instead evolved into the album Pinkerton. Several of the songs considered for inclusion on SFTBH ultimately appeared on Pinkerton or were released as B-sides.
In 2007, Rolling Stone called Songs from the Black Hole one of music's lost "mythical masterpieces.""Lost Music: Green Day’s Stolen Album, Kurt’s Demos and Other Mythical Masterpieces" Rolling Stone. 9 February 2007. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lost-music-green-days-stolen-album-kurts-demos-and-other-mythical-masterpieces-104258/ In 2014, Vice called SFTBH "better than almost everything [Weezer has] released in the last 15 years."Bassil, Ryan. "Weezer’s “Lost” Science-Fiction Rock Opera Is Better Than Almost Everything They’ve Released in the Last 15 Years" Vice. 4 December 2014. https://www.vice.com/en/article/6ejjzr/weezers-songs-from-the-black-hole-is-better-than-almost-everything-theyve-released-in-the-last-fifteen-years Stereogum called SFTBH "perhaps the greatest 'what if?' in modern music."
==History==
=== Conception ===
The earliest known written draft of Songs from the Black Hole, as presented in the Pinkerton Diaries, was dated November 28, 1994. The characters of the story were to be Jonas (voiced by Rivers Cuomo), Laurel (voiced by Rachel Haden of That Dog), Maria (planned to be voiced by Joan Wasser of the Dambuilders), Wuan & Dondó (Brian Bell and Matt Sharp, respectively), and a robot called M1 (voiced by Karl Koch via the use of a vocoder). At the time, Wasser was unaware of Cuomo's intention of having her play a role on the album.
The initial draft of the story differed from later drafts, seemingly taking place on Earth in a futuristic setting. Subsequent drafts re-imagined the characters explicitly as space travelers. In the words of Cuomo, taken from an interview in the November 15, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone: "There's this crew - three guys and two girls and a mechanoid - that are on this mission in space to rescue somebody, or something. The whole thing was really an analogy for taking off, going out on the road and up the charts with a rock band, which is what was happening to me at the time I was writing this and feeling like I was lost in space."
An early version of the story that would become SFTBH can be seen in the book The Pinkerton Diaries and was dated June 28, 1994:
:I'm thinking of a story. A young man faced with choosing one of two women. One: sexy, but deeply dedicated and loving to the young man. Unfortunately she's a little psycho. They can have a crazy but real relationship. The other: an ideal: A certain non-sexual beauty. Smart and cultured. Inexperienced yet not at all naïve. The character has to find his right and wrong with regards to women. He comes to himself in this quest. Ambivalence about physical relations.
The story would be reworked into the central plot for SFTBH, with the man in the story being reworked into Jonas, and the women being reworked into Maria and Laurel.
===Recording===
In February 1995, Cuomo and drummer Pat Wilson recorded several SFTBH demos to ADAT tape in Hamburg, Germany. Later that month, Cuomo compiled a tracklist for SFTBH, featuring several previously recorded demos, as well as the version of "Blast Off!" recorded in Hamburg. It is unknown if any other demos from this session made it onto this tracklist. In June, Weezer recorded "You Gave Your Love to Me Softly," a song seen in a synopsis of SFTBH. This recording was featured on the soundtrack to the film Angus and was produced by Rob Cavallo.
In August, Weezer began recording SFTBH at Electric Lady Studios, with no producer. The songs "Waiting on You," "Blast Off!," "Longtime Sunshine," "Why Bother?," "Getchoo," "No Other One," "Tired of Sex," "Devotion," "I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams," "You Gave Your Love to Me Softly," and "You Won't Get With Me Tonight" would be tracked.Weezer Recording History - Page 8 In September, the master tapes were brought over to Fort Apache Studios, where "Waiting on You," "Why Bother?," "Getchoo," "No Other One," "Tired of Sex," "Devotion," and "You Gave Your Love to Me Softly" would receive work.
Over the course of recording, Cuomo, who'd enrolled at Harvard in the fall of 1995, was inspired to change his focus from the space rock opera theme of SFTBH to the Madame Butterfly-influenced theme that permeates Pinkerton. One final tracklist of SFTBH was made in the fall as a means to try and salvage what was left of the concept. Weezer began recording at Sound City Studios in January 1996. By this time, the songs "El Scorcho" and "Pink Triangle" had been written and were recorded during these sessions, but "Superfriend," "She's Had a Girl," and "Dude, We're Finally Landing" would be tracked as a very last-ditch effort to save SFTBH. By the next sessions in the spring, Songs from the Black Hole had been scrapped in favor of Pinkerton.
Pinkerton was released on September 24, 1996 and included the songs "Tired of Sex", "Getchoo", "No Other One", and "Why Bother?". These four songs had been written prior to the conception of SFTBH but had been reworked into the story of SFTBH. Further leftovers "Devotion", "Waiting on You", and "I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams" (the latter of which was conceived as a SFTBH song) surfaced as b-sides to the Pinkerton singles "El Scorcho" and "The Good Life". "I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams" notably features Rachel Haden singing lead vocals, in the role that was originally intended for SFTBH.
Asked why he "ditched" the album concept in a 2002 fan correspondence, Cuomo simply replied "rotr" (referring to the 1995 album Return of the Rentals by former Weezer bassist Matt Sharp), adding "plus it was kind of a lame idea". Cuomo expanded on this in 2010, saying "our bass player, Matt, put out his first solo record and I felt like it had a lot of the same musical and lyrical themes that I was planning to explore on the second record. So that would be one contributing factor, my change of heart. Also, I had this really painful surgical procedure on my leg, which lasted 13 months in all and it took me to a place, emotionally, where the whole idea of this whole rock opera started to feel too whimsical for where I was emotionally, going through the pain of the procedure. And so I scrapped the whole idea and went to a more serious and dark place."Greene, Andy. "Rivers Cuomo Looks Back at ‘Pinkerton’" Rolling Stone. 2 November 2010. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/rivers-cuomo-looks-back-at-pinkerton-107425/ In 2002, several SFTBH demos were leaked on the internet. These included "Blast Off!", "Oh No, This Is Not For Me", "Come to My Pod", "Tired of Sex" and "Longtime Sunshine". Another demo, "You Won't Get With Me Tonight", was officially released on the 2003 compilation Buddyhead Presents: Gimme Skelter. A very short clip of the band rehearsing "Superfriend" in Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California, in January 1996, was released on the Weezer DVD Video Capture Device in 2004.
As the demos from the SFTBH began being desired by fans, Cuomo stated on his blog that he was unable to release any of his demos (including Black Hole songs) because of his contractual obligations to Geffen Records: "...Someday that may change but it won’t be anytime soon...Until I can figure out a way to compensate Geffen records (and in the case of covers songs, the songwriters) I can’t give away my recordings." Also on his blog, Cuomo mentioned playing his demos to Jordan Schur, the president of Geffen Records: "...when we were starting to work on Make Believe in 2003, I sat down with Jordan and played him hours of my old demos, going all the way back to the beginnings of Weezer. He didn’t think any of them were album-worthy. Neither did I. The one song he thought was good was "Blast Off" but it 'needs a new chorus.' I agreed." In a 2006 interview, commenting on speculation that Make Believe would be Weezer's last album, Pat Wilson stated that he would be interested in releasing a compilation of "lost" Weezer tracks. This fueled rumours that the band would release previously unheard Black Hole songs or a completely re-worked version of the Songs from the Black Hole concept album in the near future. A petition for the band to release the SFTBH demos was launched by Weezer fans on November 27, 2005, with the goal of reaching one thousand signatures. The petition reached its goal on March 1st, 2006. On October 3, 2005 during a Weezer show at Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois, the band invited a fan up onstage to play the rhythm guitar for "Undone - The Sweater Song". The fan took advantage of this moment to attempt to get the band to play "Blast Off!" by beginning to play the intro to the song and sang the first four lines of the song.CLme. "Blast Off / Undone" YouTube. 16 October 2007. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNG3RPbxz0M "Blast Off!" was played live for the first time with the full band on August 19, 2011 at a concert at WaMu Theater in Seattle, WA. It was the encore song after a "Double Memories Night", during which the band performed both The Blue album and Pinkerton in their entirety.
Sheet music and lyrics for several unreleased Songs from the Black Hole tracks were made available by Cuomo on his MySpace page on April 30, 2006. Lyrics were posted for "Blast Off!", "Who You Callin' Bitch?", "Oh Jonas", "Please Remember", "Oh No, This Is Not For Me", "She's Had a Girl", and "Now I Finally See", while sheet music was posted for "She's Had a Girl", "Who You Callin' Bitch?" and "Oh Jonas".
Pat Wilson discussed SFTBH in a 2006 interview with the student radio station WBFH in Bloomfield Hills, MI.WBFH website, "The Latest Station News" page. Blog reads: "INTERVIEW ALERT! Exclusive interview with Pat Wilson of Weezer on Wednesday November 15th from 3-5 p.m., during Keifer Wells' show "Rock Your Face Off!!"." Archived via Wayback Machine.Karl's Corner - 11/11/2006 Karl's Corner by Karl Koch. He recalled that the rest of Weezer only knew Cuomo wanted to make a concept album.
On October 15, 2007 Cuomo posted a blog on his official blog stating that he had permission from Geffen to release a collection of demos spanning 1992-2007. On November 22, Cuomo updated his blog, stating "I want to share with everyone the excitement I felt when I went back and heard the original master tapes of these demos. In most cases, they sounded much better than the mp3s I've been listening to for years--clearer, warmer, deeper. I highly recommend that listeners buy the CD rather than the digital version so that they can enjoy the highest quality listening experience." On December 18, Rivers Cuomo released the collection of his home demos entitled Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo. The collection also included five demos for songs intended for or included on Songs From the Black Hole: "Longtime Sunshine", "Blast Off!", "Who You Callin' Bitch?", "Dude, We're Finally Landing", and "Superfriend." This was the first time fans got to hear "Who You Callin' Bitch?", "Dude, We're Finally Landing", and a high-quality version of "Superfriend." In the Alone booklet, Cuomo explained some of the plot points of the musical and, after having reviewed his journal notes of SFTBH, revealed that the name of the "good girl" was Laurel (previously mistakenly believed by fans to be "Lisa".
Three more tracks were released on November 25, 2008 on Alone II, including "Oh Jonas", "Please Remember", and "Come To My Pod". "You Won't Get with Me Tonight" was re-released on the Deluxe Edition of Pinkerton in 2010. On December 12, 2011 several demos were released on Alone III: The Pinkerton Years, including "Oh No, This Is Not for Me", "Tired of Sex", "She's Had a Girl", "What Is This I Find?", "Now I Finally See", and a reprise of "Longtime Sunshine" and "Superfriend". Finally with the release of Alone IV: The Blue-Pinkerton Years on November 22, 2020, "Why Bother", "Devotion", "I Just Threw Out the Love Of My Dreams", "You Were a Man", three alternate reprises of "Longtime Sunshine" and an alternate demo of "Superfriend" were released.
Three copies of a demo version of SFTBH are known to exist in CD-R form. Two of them are in the care of Karl Koch, while the third copy is in Cuomo's personal archive. These CDs contain the tracks from the second track list (see below).
==Reception==
===Critics===
====Individual songs====
==Track lists==
===Drafted track lists===
The 2011 book The Pinkerton Diaries contains various handwritten drafts of the album's lyrics:
<tabber>
|-|Draft 1=
#"Negativland"/"Blast Off!"
#"Who You Callin' Bitch?"
#"Please Remember"
#"Come to My Pod"
#(instrumental, possibly beginning with Maria's Theme in minor)
#"Oh No, This Is Not for Me"
#"Tired of Sex"
#(interstitial "I'm Living All Wrong")
#(untitled interstitial with Maria's Theme)
#(untitled interstitial "Oh, she's a liar")
#"Now I Finally See"
#"Dude, We're Finally Landing"
#"Getchoo"
#"Longtime Sunshine"
|-|Synopsis, ca. 1995=
Synopsis:
#"Blast Off!"
#"Jo-Jo's theme"/"Come to My Pod"
#"Tired of Sex"
#"Superfriend"
#"You Gave Your Love to Me Softly"
#"I Thought You Should Know"
#"Tragic Girl"
#"Good News!"
#"Getchoo"
#"I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams"
#"No Other One"
#"Touch-Down!"
#"Devotion"
#"What Is This I Find?"
#"Why Bother?"
#"Special Thanks"
#"I Don't Belong"
#"Goodbye Jonas"
#"Longtime Sunshine"
|-|Draft 2=
#"Blast Off!"
#"You Won't Get With Me Tonight"
#"Oh Jonas"/"Maria's Theme"
#"Come to My Pod"
#"Tired of Sex"
#"Superfriend"
#"I Thought You Should Know"
#"Tragic Girl"
#"She's Had a Girl"
#"Dude, We're Finally Landing"
#"Getchoo"
#"No Other One"
#"Touch-Down!"
#"Devotion"
#"What Is This I Find?"
#("Oh Jonas" reprise)
#"Waiting On You"
#("Oh Jonas" reprise, in D)
#(untitled interstitial, "Oh! She's a liar")
#"Why Bother?"
#"I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams"
</tabber>
===Demoed track list #1===
The first recorded track list (referred to by Karl Koch as "Tracklist 1" in the Weezer Recording History) was compiled by Cuomo from cassette recordings made from late 1993 through late 1994. Some of the songs from this set were later demoed and recorded to ADAT tape by Cuomo and Pat Wilson in February of 1995 at a studio in Hamburg, Germany.
*The song "Why Bother?" was also recorded, though its place in this tracklist is unknown.
===Demoed track list #2===
The second version of the track list (referred to by Karl Koch as "Tracklist 2" in the Weezer Recording History) was assembled by Cuomo and includes some newly-recorded demos, after beginning his semester at Harvard in the fall of 1995, as a "last ditch effort" to salvage the Songs from the Black Hole concept. Ultimately, by the following spring, the concept had been shelved in favor of the concept that would eventually become Pinkerton. The song "Lisa" was recorded as part of this track list, but was not intended for SFTBH.
* Not intended for SFTBH.
===Other songs===
*"You Were a Man" - released as part of Alone IV: The Blue-Pinkerton Years
==Sequel==
In 2023, Cuomo consulted with his discord server on potentially working on a revival of the Songs from the Black Hole concept for Weezer's twentieth album.
==See also==
*Rivers Cuomo
*Pinkerton
*The Rentals
==References==
Category:Songs from the Black Hole
Category:Pinkerton
Category: Unfinished/unreleased Weezer projects
Category: Featured article
Category: Weezer demos