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:
- Rap 0:35
- Slipknot 1:00
- Jeff Buckley 1:26
- Choral 1:51
- Aerosmith 2:17
- Nirvana 2:43
- Andrews Sisters 3:08
- Green Day 3:33
- Spoken word (heavily inspired by Elvis' "Are You Lonesome Tonight?") 4:06
- Bach 4:37, Beethoven 4:57
- Weezer 5:13
Read more about this topic: The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations On A Shaker Hymn)
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“The proposed Constitution ... is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
“Vices enter into the composition of virtues as poisons into the composition of certain medicines. Prudence and common sense mix them together, and make excellent use of them against the misfortunes that attend human life.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)