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Keaton Ott
Kesha Peyrefitte
ENG 111 AA
30 September 2016
"El Scorcho": Not Just a Hot Sauce
“Goddamn, you half-Japanese girls. Do it to me every time.” Front man, Rivers
Cuomo, starts off his band’s first single from their second album with this ridiculously whimsical
line, after gargling some water out of a Styrofoam cup. Following Weezer’s initial success with
their widely loved (and purchased) self-titled album in 1994, Rivers Cuomo went through a bit of
an identity crisis. He had achieved rock star fame, but he still wanted to get an education and
become a somewhat normalized adult. After finding out at Harvard that this wasn’t achievable
for him, Rivers poured his heart out into Weezer’s second album, Pinkerton. The first single and
music video used to introduce the album, “El Scorcho”, acts as a gateway for listeners, telling
them exactly what to expect in their sophomore debut. The video uses close-up shots of the band
members as Rivers vents his frustrations over a Half- Japanese love interest, using flashing lights
timed with the music and Rivers’ expressions to display the desperate emotions throughout the
song.
After the startling opener, Rivers begins to explain his statement throughout the
first verse. He has found this girl that he has a weakness for that has yet to notice him, but he
can’t bring himself to speak with her. Meanwhile, the video displays a hopeless looking Rivers
going along with his lines while his bandmates play around. The bassist holds up a little paper
face and sticks his tongue out towards the camera. A light in the back of the ballroom begins to
light up the word ‘Weerez’, an embarrassing misspelling of the band’s name. The

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cinematography is displaying the band as half-hearted while simultaneously conveying Rivers’
obviously discontented feelings. This initial scene is revealing the band’s ethos by showing who
they are and what kind of atmosphere they are working with. The misspelling of the band’s name
symbolizes how they don’t really take themselves seriously, as well as faces the bassist is
making through a paper mask, all despite his lead singer’s obvious look of disassociation.
Rivers’ expressions are making use of pathos, invoking sympathy from viewers that see the
disappointment in his eyes.
Following a slow first verse, the band transitions to the bridge with just vocals
and drums, until the chorus explodes with an upbeat tempo and flashing lights. The whole band
starts singing, “I’m a lot like you so please, hello, I’m here, I’m waiting.” Rivers wants this girl
to make the first move, and he’s he is using logos by reasoning with and saying that they are
similar. The song quickly went from a low energy mumble to a passionate shout, revealing
Cuomo’s trapped emotions as he hopes for his love to come to him. The raw emotion pouring out
of the chorus is a surprise attack, because of the band's tempo, the intensity of the lights, and the
passion in the lyrics all strike at the same time, after a mellow first verse. What started out as a
man just wanting to get noticed has turned into a passionate plea for his love to come out and say
something. A very strong use of pathos is displayed by this combination of music and images,
relating to the audience by means of describing a man’s yearning for romance.
Just as quickly, the tempo dies back down as the next verse starts. In the second
verse, Rivers’ realizes this girl might not be as similar to him as he thought. She doesn’t know
who Greenday is, so Rivers takes a peek at her diary as if he was going to find some connection
between them. Mentioning Greenday is actually Weezer using kairos, as it relates to the time
period the song was released; back in the ninties when the band Greenday was huge. The lyrics,

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combined with the look on Rivers’ face and the darkness surrounding the ballroom give off a
feeling of passive hopelessness. But as Rivers sings the lines “And my heart stopped: listening to
Cio-Cio San, fall in love all over again,” the lights suddenly come back on and a huge light
fixture, in the shape of a ‘W’, appears. Weezer managed to do something very complex in a total
of six seconds. “Listening to Cio-Cio San” is a reference to the tragic opera Madame Butterfly,
in which a US sailor named Pinkerton falls for a Japanese woman named Cio-Cio San. In the
first line of the song, Rivers’ mentions the girl he is pining for is half-Japanese, and the albums
name is Pinkerton. The reason for the connection to the opera is because Rivers feels as though
he is a coward just like Pinkerton was: Pinkerton could not face his wife after he left her to marry
an American girl, which lead to Cio-Cio San’s suicide. This line also conveys how reading her
diary has sparked a new hope in Rivers’ as he finds out she loves him back, allowing him to
become hopeful again for the chorus as the Weezer symbol shines brightly as if to represent the
resurgence of teenage love. Further driving home this point, the whole band starts dancing, with
smiles on their faces (Rivers excluded).
Instead of slowing back down after the chorus, the tempo picks up even more for
the next verse. Bright lights rapidly flash on and off as Rivers realizes that his heart is
desperately aching for this woman and he can only sing about it. He is wishing more and more
that she would, “just come up to me and say hello to my heart.” Meanwhile, the rest of the band
is dancing around with wide smiles on their faces, as a juxtaposition to what Rivers is feeling at
this point. Strobe lights are flashing, but soon begin to dim as the second half of the verse starts.
Now Rivers starts to quiet down as he says that maybe this girl is in the same position he is in,
and is afraid to tell him, “I’m falling for you.” This verse essentially serves to explain how
Rivers can’t say anything to the girl, but he starts to realize she may never say anything to him

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either, even if they both have feelings for each other. The rest of the band’s behavior and the
lights flashing on the set follow Rivers’ constant back and forth between helplessness, hope, and
frustration.
The clear appeal to empathy continues in the next verse as Rivers quietly sings
that wishes he could, “get my head out of the sand,” and actually come and speak to his crush.
He continues to try to reason with himself by saying they would work well together, she would
keep him out of trouble, and they would provide for each other. This rationalization is an
example of logos, as Rivers’ is using reasoning to explain why he and this woman need to be
together. Nonetheless, he then proclaims loudly that it is all just a stupid dream that will never
come to fruition because he is simply too afraid to approach her. This time, when Rivers is
singing about his reasoning, he sounds quiet and halfhearted, revealing how low his hopes are.
He also is shown as just a silhouette due to the lighting in the room. When he admits that it’s a
stupid dream, the lighting reveals his face again as he shouts and the whole band plays according
to his pained and angered emotion.
As the last chorus begins, the band is once again shown as energetic. The light
show climaxes with strobe lights and a disco ball illuminating the room. Rivers’ and the rest of
the band go back and forth in repeating the lines, “I’m a lot like you” but then instead of
repeating the line a second time, Rivers trails off with the word, “waiting”. The way Rivers says
waiting shows how he feels about the situation. This is a combination use of pathos and logos, as
the lyrics appeal to reason, but the situation in the video and the tone of the vocals invoke
empathy. When the song nears its end, the giant ‘w’ sign explodes in a flash of sparks,
representing all the raw passion, frustration and angst burning out.

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Through the video, the music, and Rivers’ lyrics, Weezer acted as a vehicle for
their front man, so he could explain the struggle he faces in trying to find out if he should
approach his love, wait for her to say something, or simply wait indefinitely. The lights and
movement of the band are used to display the emotion of the lyrics as they are sung. The pitch of
the vocals reveals exactly how the rhetor feels. The rhetor’s fears of rejection and not knowing
whether or not a girl likes him back resonates with a wide audience of young adolescents who
find themselves too shy or fearful to try and start romantic relationships. The very emotionally
charged music lends itself very well to reaching maturing teens hearts and representing Weezer
themselves as a keystone of rock culture in the nineties.

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Works Cited
Weezer. “Weezer - El Scorcho (Director’s Cut).” Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 16 Jun.
2009. Web. 25 Sept. 2016.