X/Z Song Trader: "Domino Effect"
A Gen X Rocker Discusses Music With His Gen Z Daughter
About X/Z Song Trader: Steve is a music journalist, author and musician. Lucy is a diehard music fan and college student. They have always enjoyed a father/daughter bond over music. Each week one of them picks a song and they both share their perspectives. These are casual conversations based on musical connections. Opinions are their own. Keeping it positive.
Check out the whole X/Z Song Trader series.
Steve’s Song Choice: “Domino Effect”
There’s something pretty magical about watching young artists manifest their dreams.
The members of the band Ozma were about your age when they first got to open a couple California shows for their musical heroes Weezer in 2000. At least two of the them—Daniel Brummel and Jose Galvez—were in the Weezer Fan Club, and it was Galvez who handed Rivers Cuomo a copy of their first album, Rock and Roll Part Three, at a Warped Tour stop. Ozma later opened for Weezer on two national tours in 2001 and 2002, and members of the band have remained musically and professionally intertwined with Weezer on-and-off ever since.
For context, try to imagine what it would be like if one of your favorite modern writers—somebody like Ottessa Moshfegh or Sally Rooney—read one of your poems and invited you to join them on a national book tour. That was the kind of life-changing opportunity Weezer gave Ozma early on in their career.
It’s the stuff of fairytales, but none of that would have happened if Ozma wasn’t already a great band when Weezer put them on the national stage.
For proof, look no further than “Domino Effect,” the stunning lead track from their debut album. Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo once said that Ozma was “beating me at my own game” with this song. It certainly captures Weezer’s early sound (with a healthy dash of The Rentals added in for good measure), but I think it’s the insightful lyrics that make it timeless.
Here are the opening lines to the first verse:
Chances last a finite time,
In the warm July nighttime.
Every care that keeps you from your feet,
Is a care that carries your defeat
That last line becomes a poignant lyrical theme that Brummel and Ryen Slegr come back to repeatedly as they occasionally trade vocals throughout the track. In each instance, they playfully tweak the preceding line (“keeps you from your feet” becomes “keeps you in your seat” and “keeps you from the beat”) as the song progresses. It’s a striking series of lyrical phrases that artfully underscores the song’s urgent call to seize the moment, combined with a heavy dose of nostalgia in the choruses.
Whether that’s the narrators speaking to themselves, to their listeners, or a more generational call to action in the vein of The Who’s “My Generation” or Supergrass’ “Alright” is probably up for debate.
I personally tend to favor the self-talk interpretation, especially when I consider the repeated, cryptic reference to the “fourteenth domino”—which, for some reason, makes me think of an anxiety-riddled fourteen-year-old at the start of high school deciding who they want to be. And, of course, how those kinds of early decisions have a domino effect throughout the years.
In the case of Ozma, they got on their feet, out of their seats, and embraced the beat in ways that allowed them to manifest their rock and roll dreams. Even in mid-life, I still believe these lyrics are a great reminder to never stop taking chances and evolving—especially the final line: “Chances last a finite time, and you're running out of time.”
That’s a powerful message, no matter what you hope to achieve or how old you are.
Lucy’s Perspective
It's pretty inspiring to hear that Ozma achieved exactly what it wanted so young, even gaining attention and interest of from the members of a favorite band. This really resonates with me in terms of my passion for writing because I started off so young, inspired by my favorite authors and by other writers in my life, and have spent so much time working toward my goals of actually publishing my work.
As always, I am a sucker for a repeating line or two since it is something my favorite artists (including boygenius and Phoebe Bridgers) do very often. I agree with you that this song has hints of nostalgia in it, though maybe we don’t experience it in the same way. While this song is reminiscent of Weezer, it reminds me more of the bands like Ridel High and Psoma that I grew up listening thanks to you. It's funny to listen to those bands knowing how intertwined you all were with one another and with the Weezer scene in the ‘90s.
The idea of seizing the moment that Ozma sings about in this song takes me right back to the conversation about publishing my own work.
I knew I wanted to write starting in high school, but I was terrified to even share my work aloud with my class. Through years of encouragement from teachers, family and friends, I stood up on a stage for the final show of my senior year and read a poem I had written. Now, sharing my work is much easier and even exciting.
Now that I’m in college, it is even more crucial for me to get my writing out into the world and hope for some response. A good friend of mine recently created a zine and put out a call for submissions around campus. One of my poems was selected, giving me the opportunity to get published in a comfortable way. It’s a great starting point.
I think some of the lyrics in “Domino Effect” are poetic too:
Sing that song you sang long ago A heartbeat so sure and slow Hold me and don't let go The fourteenth domino
The lines above, in particular, reminded me of this stanza from a Richard Siken poem called Scheherazade:
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means we’re inconsolable. Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us. These, our bodies, possessed by light. Tell me we’ll never get used to it.
Although these words don’t sound exactly like the song’s lyrics, they hold a similar eerie upset for me. Part of the reason why I have always loved poetry more than any other form of writing is simply because it is often reminiscent of song lyrics and “Domino Effect” is a great example of that.
Lucy’s Next Song Choice (In Two Weeks)
“Red Wine Supernova” by Chappell Roan
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The Kindle edition of Generation Blue: An Oral History of The Hollywood Geek Rock Scene in the 1990s & 2000s is now available. Featuring members of The Rentals, Ozma, Nerf Herder, Ridel High, Campfire Girls, Baby Lemonade and many more. Read all the personal stories and stream the comp on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, etc.