Pinkerton (album) - Themes

Themes

Pinkerton is named after the character BF Pinkerton from Puccini's 1904 opera Madama Butterfly. Calling him an "asshole American sailor similar to a touring rock star", Cuomo felt the character was "the perfect symbol for the part of myself that I am trying to come to terms with on this album." Other titles considered included "Playboy" and "Diving into the Wreck" (after a poem by Adrienne Rich). Like Madama Butterfly, the album views Japanese culture from the perspective of an outsider who considers Japan fragile and sensual; the album's themes infuse the Japanese allusions with its first-person narrator's romantic disappointments and sexual frustration. Cuomo felt that Pinkerton "is really the clash of East vs West. My hindu, zen, kyokushin, self-denial, self-abnegation, no-emotion, cool-faced side versus my Italian-American heavy metal side." He stated that "the 10 songs are sequenced in the order in which I wrote them (with two minor exceptions). So as a whole, the album kind of tells the story of my struggle with my inner Pinkerton."

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    In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.
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