Weezer Reflect on Old Age and Fading Looks on Catchy ‘Cleopatra’

Weezer’s ninth album Everything Will Be Alright in the End arrives in a little less than a month. We’ve already heard their self-referential first single “Back to the Shack” and a snippet of the Best Coast-featuring “Go Away,” and now the band has unveiled another EWBAITE track called “Cleopatra.” As Rivers Cuomo previously told Rolling Stone of the band’s new LP, “The overarching theme of the album is an increased awareness of the impermanence of everything we took for granted,” and “Cleopatra” fits in with that motif.

“Your beauty has faded / You’re an empty shell / It’s only the weak that fall for your spell,” Cuomo sings on the catchy yet acerbic track about growing old. “You can’t control me no more, Cleopatra / All the wine we tasted, all the love we made, all the strumming lyres will decorate your grave.” The track recalls the band’s earlier albums thanks in part to the unmistakable production of Ric Ocasek, who worked on the band’s classic Blue and Green self-titled albums. “We just have that chemistry,” Cuomo told Rolling Stone about reuniting with Ocasek. “Even when we know he’s on the way to the studio, we all start playing different.”

In addition to the new song, Weezer also revealed a few pages of artwork from the EWBAITE booklet. Listed in the “Thank You” section alongside known album collaborators like Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino, Josh Alexander and Jacob Kasher are Death Cab for Cutie’s Benjamin Gibbard and Toro y Moi’s Chaz Bundick.

The band also announced that Everything Will Be Alright in the End is available to pre-order now at the iTunes Music Store, with fans receiving “instant gratification” downloads of “Cleopatra” along with “Back to the Shack.” EWBAITE, Weezer’s first LP with Republic Records, officially arrives October 7th.