Weezer released their first single since last year’s Everything Will Be Alright in the End on Sunday night, and in Pinkerton-esque fashion it’s both a little cryptic and deeply strange. Titled “Thank God for Girls,” the song seems to be simultaneously an ode to women and a condemnation of them, with the song’s narrator fantasizing about a woman who will nurse his wounds, give him cannoli to take on his manly adventures (hiking in the woods with his “bros,” employing his testosterone to fight “dragons and ruffians”), and ultimately break his heart.
The surreal lyric video, which consists of three minutes and thirty seconds of a mysterious long-haired mustachioed man being hand-fed cannoli, doesn’t make things much clearer. “She’s so big,” Cuomo says appreciately, “She’s so strong; she’s so energetic in her sweaty overalls.” Both the lyrics and the video offer a strange mix of backhanded deference and deeply gendered actions, with the protagonist’s angst coming to a head as he spatters cream and powdered sugar on the walls. Perhaps it’s all an attempt to send up Rivers Cuomo’s history of creepiness? (Remember when he wrote a whole song about fantasizing about a teenager?) But a creep is a creep, even sugarcoated.
