Everybody Get Dangerous

Album: The Red Album (2008)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is partly autobiographical song about the "dangerous" things Rivers Cuomo got into as a kid. Cuomo's childhood friend Adam Orth blogged the following: "man, we did some stupid s--t when we kids. I'm reminded of all of these things by listening to 'Everybody Get Dangerous' off of the new Weezer record (Red). Rivers had warned me that he was putting this song on the record, but I kind of forgot about it and it's really bringing back some old, "painful" memories. Back in Connecticut in high school (and earlier) we used to call it 'Getting Dangerous.' Basically that meant destroying everything and each other in the most dangerous way as quickly as possible. Usually it started by Rivers (Peter), Justin, Leaves (Jimmy), Eric or myself out of the blue, simply uttering the phrase and then it was literally like a Bugs Bunny cartoon where all you could see was a giant ball of dust and chaos with an occasional fist or head or whatever item was being used to hit each other popping out comedically then going back in for more. Then, instantly it would be over. The dust would settle and everyone would be out of breath, in pain, lying in wreckage and very often bleeding and ALWAYS laughing."
  • Adam Orth then went on to explain in his blog the lyric "Drivin' home on country roads, 65 in a 25 zone in my parents Tercel, how did we survive so well, throw the keys and the wheel locked up, I almost killed every one us."
    "As we grew older, Getting Dangerous got... well... more dangerous. We expanded to include fire, explosives, gasoline, knives, roadkill and automobiles. The stakes had to get bigger... and scarier.
    Rivers used to have this Toyota Tercel and he would drive me and Justin (and sometimes Matt Hayes) home after school. Since we lived in the country (as opposed to the city) there were all sorts of crazy winding roads and hills in our town. This one particularly steep hill on Gurleyville road that led down to Justin's house was epic. Steep as hell with an unreal 90 degree dead man's curve at the bottom. Growing up, I saw many cars wreck on that corner. People died there. Upping the stakes of getting dangerous resulted in a fun little game I used to call "HOLY S--T WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE." This is how we played the game. Rivers would be driving and without warning (it was never guaranteed this game would commence at the top of the hill. Always random.), Rivers would throw the car in neutral and rip the keys out of the ignition and toss them in the back seat as the steering wheel locked-up and the car careened down this deadliest of hills. The object of the game was for the screaming and terrified (and laughing) passengers to try and find the keys and get them back to Rivers in time so he could start the careening death trap up again and unlock the steering wheel to regain control of the car before we got to the bottom and died in a heap of twisted metal. How we never got as much as a scratch on us is just unbelievable."
  • This appears in the 2008 movie 21.

Comments: 1

  • Veve from Lorain, OhWeezer is a great band.
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