Holiday by Weezer - Songfacts

Album: Weezer (The Blue Album) (1994)

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This song appears in the college slacker film Accepted, starring Justin Long, Jonah Hill, and Lewis Black, and is on the movie's official soundtrack. In the film, the song plays while the class is taking a group picture. The song also appeared in one of the trailers for Adam Sandler's Christmas movie Eight Crazy Nights.
This song contains references to a couple of things Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo was interested in at the time he wrote it in 1993. In 2006, Cuomo mentioned that beat poet Jack Kerouac was one of his favorite philosophers at the time. In the notable breakdown of the song, which the band often refers to as "Beach Boys Breakdowns," Cuomo sings the line, "On the road with Kerouac", a reference to Kerouac's seminal work On the Road.
Weezer rarely plays this song live, but a recorded live version can be found on an EP entitled The Lion and The Witch, which was released in 2002. In the recording, bassist Scott Shriner (who was new to the band at the time) flubs the lyrics during the bridge, causing the rest of the band to erupt in laughter. At the end of the song, frontman Rivers Cuomo proclaims, "That was freakin' Nobel Prize quality right there. Scott just won a Grammy!"
In an early edition of Weezine (Weezer's periodical that used to be sent to fan club members), it was revealed that drummer Patrick Wilson had a small vocal part during the bridge of this song. This is notable because although Wilson had vocal parts on Weezer's later albums, his vocal footprint on the band's self-titled debut album is very small.
A demo of this song recorded as a solo track by Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo leaked on the internet sometime in the late '00s. The demo version is very close to the finished product that appears on Weezer's 1994 self-titled album, but one interesting difference is that the breakdown in the demo version doesn't feature any lyrics.
The opening line in this song, "Let's go away for a while," is likely a reference to the Beach Boys track "Let's Go Away for a While" from the album Pet Sounds. Cuomo has mentioned in the past that the Beach Boys (and the Pet Sounds album in particular) are a huge influence on him.

Comments: 1

Rotunda from Tulsa, OkI love the version on The Blue Album. My Dad says he had this CD when he was in grad school, so he told me a lot about Weezer & their songs That's how I became a fan of Weezer here in 2014. I like this song cause it is so mellow sounding. A real laid-back kinda song.

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