Tunes to Fill Your Ears

Weezer - Where's My Sex?

This song is off of their 2010 album, called Hurley. I know many Weezer fans do not enjoy this song, or really even that album. While others think it's simply amazing, and that's the beauty about music; it's all subjective. For me when I first heard this song (I don't remember exactly when, years ago I know though) it immediately grabbed my attention, which is a very important trait when listening to music for me. The song takes no time in getting right into the lyrics. With the very first verse starting with...

"Mom made my sex

She knitted it with her hands

Sex-making is

A family tradition..."

That right there got my attention instantly. Specifically the whole "Sex-making is a family tradition", I don't know about you, but that got me thinking right away about incest. And any song that opens up about incest is one worth listening to. Moving away from the opening verse, the opening beat and sound of the song also caught my ears. (Be warned I'm terrible at describing how songs sound) With it being such a simple beat and throwing in some random noises, it's a rhythm that can easily get stuck in my head. Throughout the whole song it overall remains with that beat, but gets more amped up in the chorus, and slightly tweaked. My favorite part of the song, sound wise, is roughly at 2:30 when the song changes pace and rhythm. I'm a sucker for any song that changes like that. After roughly twenty seconds of the change, the music goes back to the welcomed simple, catchy beat. The song only has about thirty seconds left after that.

Now that I covered the music itself, I'd like to go back to the lyrics. The song to me at first was about this guy or even girl, that was confused about their sex. Either they weren't comfortable being the gender they were, or already got a sex change, overall I just thought that that was the jist of the song. Some gender frustrated person. Once I Googled the lyrics and saw them in front of me that really didn't make sense. Specifically towards the end during the change of pace when Rivers says...

"...I got no

Sex on my feet

Sex in my drawer

Sex in my shoes

Or sex on the floor..."

...That part really didn't fit in for me the whole "gender" issue. I went to songmeanings.com which is one of my favorite sites to read other people's views about a song. I quickly realized I was looking way too much into the song. There is no big gender issue that I originally thought. Rivers simply wrote the song because one day his daughter asked him where her sex was. Instead of saying socks, she said sex and that sparked the idea of making this song (I verified this by finding an interview that Rivers did explaining this). If you replace every word that is sex, with the word socks, it makes a hell of a lot more sense. Connecting back to the opening line, this song is no longer opening about incest which I so thought, it is simply referring to a fun family tradition of knitting socks. How nice.

After figuring out the real meaning of the song, I felt kind of like an idiot. I should have realized the whole sex/socks thing. But music should allow to have your own view of the song. I no longer think about the whole gender issue meaning, but even if I or someone else did, they would be correct. To me, even if an artist flat out says, "This song means...." it doesn't matter. I think it's important to understand why the band/artist wrote it, but it's equally important to view and take it as you wish. Make it your own. Music is art. People who make music are called artists. Art is subjective. Not everyone is going to think of the same thing hearing a song. Songs should be able to connect with you one way or the other. Whether is be the way the artist imagined it would, or you have your own spin on the song. Either way it should mean something to you, and/or make you feel a certain way.

(Sorry about the above, kind of off topic rant)

Anyways, this one of my favorite songs to listen to when I want a laugh. It's an easy song to sing to and will easily get stuck in your head. There have been many times I'll be sitting bored in my math class and will end up thinking about this song. If only people knew that in my head I was singing a song about trying to find your sex (a.k.a. socks, in this case). Overall for me it's a fun song that can take your mind off things without thinking too deep about the lyrics. It's a simple, layed-out type of song, and sometimes that's exactly what I need. If you want a deep meaningful song, I don't think you'd enjoy this all too much. This isn't a serious song by any means. I know a lot of hardcore Weezer fans find this song down right stupid, but I think it's a song that most people would enjoy. This is a Weezer song that get's overlooked a lot of the time, it's not a hugely well known Weezer song unlike, "Say it Ain't So", "Island in the Sun", and "Buddy Holly". But I highly suggest giving it a shot.