Pinkerton (album) - Writing and Composition

Writing and Composition

Much of Pinkerton was written by Cuomo while he was studying at Harvard University. Writing from a more direct and personal perspective, the album explores Cuomo's dysfunctional relationships, sexual frustration and struggles with identity. At just under thirty-five minutes, Pinkerton is, according to Cuomo, "short by design." Pinkerton features a darker, more abrasive sound.

The album's first song, "Tired of Sex", written before the release of the The Blue Album, has Cuomo describing meaningless sex encounters with groupies, reciting his list of encounters, and wondering why true love eludes him. Lead single "El Scorcho" addresses Cuomo's shyness and inability to say "hello" to a girl while at Harvard; he explained that the song "is more about me, because at that point I hadn't even talked to the girl, I didn't really know much about her." Second single "The Good Life" chronicles the rebirth of Cuomo after an identity crisis as an Ivy League loner. Cuomo, who felt isolated at Harvard, wrote the song after "becoming frustrated with that hermit's life I was leading, the ascetic life. And I think I was starting to become frustrated with my whole dream about purifying myself and trying to live like a monk or an intellectual and going to school and holding out for this perfect, ideal woman. And so I wrote the song. And I started to turn around and come back the other way." The album's final single, "Pink Triangle", describes a man who falls in love and wants to get married, but discovers the object of his devotion is a lesbian. "Across the Sea" was inspired by a letter Cuomo received from a Japanese fan: "When I got the letter, I fell in love with her. It was such a great letter. I was very lonely at the time, but at the same time I was very depressed that I would never meet her. Even if I did see her, she was probably some fourteen-year-old girl, who didn't speak English."