The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations On A Shaker Hymn) - Composition

Composition

The song includes piano, police sirens, and Rivers Cuomo singing in falsetto, and it contains 11 segued verses in total. In an interview with Rolling Stone Cuomo, when questioned about how practising Vipassanā affects his music, says that the song is a lot different from any song he has previously written: "It's the most ambitious song I've ever attempted. It took me a few weeks of writing. And lyrically, it's a huge departure for me. I have a long history of writing songs from a victim type of place, and in this, I'm bragging."

In order, the themes are:

  1. Rap 0:35
  2. Slipknot 1:00
  3. Jeff Buckley 1:26
  4. Choral 1:51
  5. Aerosmith 2:17
  6. Nirvana 2:43
  7. Andrews Sisters 3:08
  8. Green Day 3:33
  9. Spoken word (heavily inspired by Elvis' "Are You Lonesome Tonight?") 4:06
  10. Bach 4:37, Beethoven 4:57
  11. Weezer 5:13

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