"The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)" is a song released as an iTunes single from American alternative rock band Weezer's sixth album, Weezer (2008). The song bears a resemblance to the Shaker song "Simple Gifts" hence the "(Variations on a Shaker Hymn)" in the title. According to lead vocalist and writer Rivers Cuomo, "The Greatest Man" has 11 different themes, including rapping and imitations of other bands such as Nirvana and Aerosmith (both of whom also recorded for Weezer's then-label Geffen Records at one point).
This song received favorable critical reviews. After being announced as the third single, a music video was also announced; however, this never materialized and instead the song was featured in a film directed by Warren Miller.
Read more about The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations On A Shaker Hymn): Recording and Inspiration, Composition, Critical Reception, Music Video and Appearances in Other Media, Personnel
Famous quotes containing the words greatest, man, lived and/or shaker:
“If I tell you that I would be disobeying the god and on that account it is impossible for me to keep quiet, you won’t be persuaded by me, taking it that I am ironizing. And if I tell you that it is the greatest good for a human being to have discussions every day about virtue and the other things you hear me talking about, examining myself and others, and that the unexamined life is not livable for a human being, you will be even less persuaded.”
—Socrates (469–399 B.C.)
“Into all that becomes something inward for men, an image or conception as such, into all that he makes his own, language has penetrated ... logic must certainly be said to be the supernatural element which permeates every relationship of man to nature, his sensation, intuition, desire, need, instinct, and simply by so doing transforms it into something human, even though only formally human, into ideas and purposes.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“I already, and for weeks afterward, felt my nature the coarser for this part of my woodland experience, and was reminded that our life should be lived as tenderly and daintily as one would pluck a flower.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Of the Shaker society, it was formerly a sort of proverb in the country, that they always sent the devil to market.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)