Dave Wirth
One defining aspect of cooking with Tofu is that it accumulates the flavor of most anything else you cook it with. If you cook Tofu with ketchup, it will taste like ketchup. If you cook it with kimchi, it will taste like kimchi. The same with power chords. Take Weezer's The Sweater Song for example. The chords during the chorus have no tonality because they are power chords, however the song sounds happy. Silly. Fun.
If I played a G power chord, I would be playing any sort of arrangement of the notes "G" and "D" but I would not include the note "B." Both G and D, in whatever arrangement on the guitar, will yield a chord that doesn't sound happy (major) or sad (minor). Yet on The Sweater Song, it somehow sounds major, despite the fact that there is no defining note in any of the chords.
The reason why is that everything that is happening around those power chords flavors them, and the power chords take on the taste of them. Tofu. The power chords can taste like:
- The melody that Rivers Cuomo sings
- The falsetto harmonies that Matt Sharp sings
- The chords in the verse
- The silly guitar introduction
- The guitar solo
If you follow me, many of the other instruments and voices hit the notes that the power chords left out. The chords (tofu) are cooked in the same batch as the melody/harmonies/guitar solos (the kimchi) and the song is memorably happy and silly (1 + 2 = full stomach). If this seems weird to you, feel free to ask me about it sometime. I will sing you a version of the Sweater Song that is minor and depressing using the same exact chords.
