| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 03/22/2006 : 09:43:16
Thought some of you might like to see this in a slightly more coherant form, I'll update it along the way but if you see any I've missed, let me know!
Ain't That Pretty At All
Alec Eiffel
*new*
I thought it was important to speak about Gustave Alexandre Eiffel, as he is considered as the pioneer of aerodynamics. Fascinating subject
- Black Francis (Alec Eiffel website - No other source)
*new*
Because of Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, but also because it's funny: in the USA and in Australia, you often say 'He's a smart Alec' about a guy who's nice but not very bright.
- Black Francis (Alec Eiffel website - no other source)
All Around The World
All Over The World
I read how some artist - Man Ray, I think - did a photographic portrait of a famous actress. They went out to the countryside, but he forgot to bring his lenses. He took the lenses out of his glasses and got the best portrait ever. I like that kind of thinking. Like "All Over The World" It's total spontaneity, just screaming and jumping around, and the end section goes into a whole other song. Our producer was really pissed because he didn't know what was going on. But I didn't either! I said, 'Look. I'm a surrealist, plus I'm lazy and full of shit, so let's just see how this comes out, all right?' And in the end, it was his favourite song
- Melody Maker, April 1991
*new*
The longest song we recorded ever. 5min is the usual average time for a song now, but for us it was a real event
- Black Francis (Alec Eiffel website - no other source)
Allison
…but of course Elvis Costello has a song called Alison, so I had to change it
- Q September 1990
(Song was originally about a girl called Alison but he changed it to be about Mose Allison the Jazz pianist because of the Elvis Costello song of the same name.)
Ana
That's a five-line verse poem, but it's an anagram: the first line of each verse spells "SUR-FER". She's, like, this naked surfer girl on a board on top of an 11 -foot wave, y'know cruising in never-never land. Never-never ocean.
- Q September 1990
I'm always playing stupid games like that. See 'Ana'? It's like anaGRAM. S.U.R.F.E.R., It's a matter of needing lyrics really fast because they're setting up the vocal mikes, and you'd better get the song done or it's gonna be an instrumental!
- Music Express, October 1990
Bailey's Walk *added*
It's about a guy I used to see all over San Juan. He could only take a couple of steps before he had to tap himself on the head an do a little spin
- "Complete 'b' sides" liner notes
Bam Thwok
Bird Dream Of The Olympus Mons *added*
It's just a song about a bird and he's flying around and then, like most birds, he flies into his tree at night and sleeps and then he dreams, and then he dreams about the Olympus Mons, which is the tallest mountain on Mars, a volcanic mountain, like 10 times the size of Everest or something.
- BBC
Blown Away
Bone Machine
Boom Chick A Boom
Born In Chicago
Break My Body
Brick Is Red
Broken Face
There was this boy who had two children with his sisters... who were his daughters... uh, what can I say... who were his favourite lovers!
- Option 21, July/August 1988
Build High
Cactus
Caribou
Cecilia Ann
Crackity Jones
Joses Jones is a roommate I had in Puerto Rico. I lived in this men’s dorm that was half homosexual and I had this really crazy drug addict psycho weirdo guy to share with and this is all about him.
I would be speaking to him in Spanish so everything would be a little vague to me and he kept talking on and on about Paco Picopiedra and La Muneca. I couldn’t work out what he was talking about and it was Fred Flinstone!
- NME 22nd April 1989
Dancing The Manta Ray *new*
I always loved this one. I asked the engineer to speed the tape up when I did the vocals because I thought I would sound more like Screamin' Jay Hawkins; I probably had just seen Stranger Than Paradise
- Complete B sides liner notes
Dead
This is the story of David and Bathsheba of the Old Testament. King David was on his rooftop one nighttime watching a woman bathing in the nude and he was aroused, I guess. Anyway he sent some men after her and I don’t know whether it was rape or a seduction, but she became pregnant. So David arrange for Uriah, her husband, who was a soldier in his army, to be sent to the battle on a suicide mission. So ‘Dead’ is a metaphor for sex reduced to the most basic; ugly, bad lust with equally bad results.
- NME 22nd April 1989
I think that kind of imagery is pretty staple, as far as old blues goes - singing about Samson & Delilah, and so on. I've been exposed to religion and blues music, and they're part of the same thing. Though I don't see myself in quite the same position of pain and desperation as some of those old blues guys must have been in. I'm flying around the world, playing for teenagers, y'know what I mean?
- Alternative Press Vol. IV No. 22, September 1989
I'm glad I got to do a song about Bathsheba, because she had a great-sounding name
- Melody Maker, April 1991
Debaser
There’s a cord progression, that’s the first thing. Then a word or a phrase at the most. Then a topic evolves around that. I thought of Un Chien Andalou and I thought an arty French movie was an equally dumb thing to write a song about.
Debaser fitted well because at the time of the movie the Parisiens were ripping up their seats in the theatres because of another film and the point of Un Chien Andalou was to debase morality. To debase standards of art. The classic film school shot is the razor slicing across the eyeball. Eyes are the main way people communicate; you can hold unspoken conversations. I guess that it’s the most important part of your body unless you’re talking to a blind person.
- NME 22nd April 1989
And on 'Debaser' I sing "Chien Andalucia,' after the Luis Bunuel movie. Originally it was "Shed, Apollonia' - for some reason, we were singing about Apollonia 6.’Shed,' like take your clothes off - it was a good word to shout. The movie is actually called Un Chien Andalou - 'An Andalusian Dog' - but that sounded too French. Sometimes I only have one word for the whole song, and Gil Norton, our producer, is in the studio saying, 'Where's your damn lyrics?
- Melody Maker, April 1991
*added*
I wish Bunuel was still alive. He made this film about nothing in particular. The title itself is a nonsense. With my stupid, pseudo-scholar, naive, enthusiast, avant-garde-ish, amateurish way to watch 'Un Chien Andalou' (twice), I thought: 'Yeah, I will make a song about it,' he sings: "un chien andalou"...It sounds too French, so I will sing "un chien andalusia", it sounds good, no?"
- Black Francis, translated from a Spanish interview
Dig For Fire
Oh, it's all nonsense, a bad Talking Heads imitation. Just like any other cool rock'n roll song or pop song, the CONTENT isn't what hits you. I mean, what the hell is 'London Calling'? I don't know anything about stupid English punk politics, but 'London Calling' sounds TOTALLY great. That's all it is. Gosh, I'm so tired of people referring to me as hopelessly obscure. I mean, pick up a Beatles album - come on! Who knows what those songs were about? Nobody knows.
- Music Express, October 1990
Distance Equals Rate Times Time
Yeah--I mean I love TV and I hate it. I love it 'cause I get to watch "Dragnet" every night at ten o'clock. I mean, I like it even when I'm fucking watching early 70's cop shows dubbed into German and I'm sitting in my hotel room going, "There's nothing on except this shit." I'm addicted to it like anybody else. [pauses] But when they finally get fiberoptics going and it becomes like CB radio, where everyone can fucking set up a video camera in their house and broadcast ... Try driving around in the city and listen to CB radio. Out in the open highway, it's just some truckers giving halfway useful information. But back in the city, it's some crazy guy sitting up in his room with masking tape on the CB, going, [yells] "RRRRGHHHH RRRRGGGHHH RRRRGGHHHH!!!" And there I am listening to the guy! He's working. The guy is broadcasting, and I'm fucking tuning in! When the phone's hooked up with TV, you're going to see a lot of bad things too--a lot of exploitation.
- Mondo 2000, 1993
Down To The Well
Ed Is Dead
Evil Hearted You
It was gonna be a b-side last year, but the publisher heard it and he spoke Spanish. It turned out there was a big mistake in it. I've re-done it and checked it out with a couple of cooks at my local burrito bar, and they gave it the okay
- Vox July 1991
(It's a version of the Yardbirds' 'Evil Hearted You' sung in Spanish by Charles, who picked up the language when he spent six months in Puerto Rico.)
Gigantic *added*
A good chord progression, very Lou-Reed influenced. I'd had the word 'gigantic' in my mind just because the chord progression seemed very big to me.
- Frank in Select, October 1997
Gouge Away
" The pillars have something to do with an old story - Samson and Delilah. Pillar's a cool word, though. It's something that supports traditionally, but I don't think like that. I think of it more as a decoration, in mansions or a palace or a big ballroom or even an old archaeological dig with no buildings left. I worked on a couple of burials (a few years ago on an archaeological dig in Arizona). I don't remember if we figured out if they were buried the same time or not. I saw the rib cage of the infant. "
Yeah, you’ve got it in one. It’s a story about Sampson and Delilah, you’re the first person that’s actually realised - probably because the song doesn’t actually mention Sampson or Delilah. It’s a sort of sex story: Delilah shows up as a secret spy of the Philistines and has an affair with Sampson. I don’t know what he was getting out of it. But enough sex and drugs and relaxation to give up his secrets. Maybe he loved her, I dunno. But they gouged his eyes out in the end.
- NME 22nd April 1989
'Gouge Away' is a telling of Samson and Delilah. It's a story that has anger. Do I purge via a song? I don't know. I suppose it's possible
- Blog Critics
Hang On To Your Ego
Hang Wire
this is haiku
- Music Express, October 1990
Yeah, the first two verses to that song are in a Haiku format - Japanese verse with three lines: five syllables, then seven, then five. Only thing, it isn't true Haiku cos it doesn't incorporate nature and make some philosophical statement about the universe or whatever
- Sounds, December 1990
Havalina
(Mexican name for a wild boar, nothing to do with band of same name who did, however, get The Pixies stoned in Texas - Q September 1990)
'Havalina' was the most difficult of those songs to record. It's in 6/4. We wanted David to do fills in 4/4, but he couldn't because he was listening to us. We ended up playing a bunch of chords in 4, had David do the fills, and then we recorded our real parts in 6.
- Melody Maker, April 1991
Head On
Here Comes Your Man
On the video:
It's really funny and weird and we're hoping there' ll be a fluke and they' ll play it, at least for the humor value. The look of it is real cheap. There's no lip synching. We just open our mouths real wide and go aaaahhh.... Some friends of ours directed and we used local film students around town. Water on the brain is the theme.
This is a pre-Pixies song that I wrote when I was about 15. It’s about wino’s and hobos travelling on the trains who dies in the California Earthquake. Before earthquakes everything gets very calm, animals stop talking and birds stop chirping and there’s no wind. It’s very ominous.
I’ve been through a few earthquakes actually ‘cos I grew up in California. I was only in one big one in 1971. I was very young and I slept through it. I’ve been awake through lots of small ones at school and at home. It’s very exciting actually, a very comical thing. It’s like the earth is shaking, and what can you do? Nothing
- NME 22nd April 1989
Last winter I was doing promotion in Stockholm and I heard this on the radio. It sounded like the most sugary, sweet thing ever. One of our chirpier numbers. Other people like it, what can you say?
- Select October 1997
Hey
It’s a relationship song about two classic sad figures. Myself or maybe not myself. Uh is the sound of sex and also of childbirth. I dunno I’m just sorta sad about about how sex goes the wrong way in a very basic sort of way and how it results in very amazing things like childbirth and stuff.
- NME 22nd April 1989
I Bleed
In the first two verses there’s no topic whatsoever; all this is just a rhyme structured AABCBDD. It’s all very automatic. The rest is about Arizona. There’s a very famous cliff dwelling there, with two or three storey houses about a mile up inside these cliffs. It’s about 900 years old and you can still see the handprints from the people who pressed the plaster onto the walls. And you can take your hand and place it in the print and it’s very wooh.
- NME 22nd April 1989
I Can't Forget
I'm Amazed
I've Been Tired
I've Been Waiting For You
In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song) *new*
While we closed the set with Vamos, we usually closed the evening with this one. I think we all even saw this movire (Eraserhead) together, and I knew I wanted to play it in the show. I thought I was pretty clever picking out this song to do, until I discovered a few years later that there were bands all over the world who did this song. You've got to love Eraserhead. It sure impressed me. I assume the haunting lyric is Lynch's and the wonderful chord progression is by a songwriter named Peter Ivers. While we were recording Come On Pilgrim I learned of his murder in an apparant "gay-bashing" some years previous.
- Complete B sides Liner notes
Into The White *new*
Of course, that's Kim doing the vocals on this. This song became a crowd favourite at gigs and was a frequent closer for a while. I always loved playing it. A fan from Belfast gave me a photo taken during our one gig there; actually, the photo was taken during our performance of Into the White, and all you can see are blazing white lights and tons of smoke. You can't even see the band. That's how it was when w did this song.
Is She Weird
Isla De Encanta
La La Love You
There is no love in here. Not a drop. I’ve never written a love song. It’s just like an abstract sort of joke; ‘la la love you don’t mean maybe’. It’s just mimicking a really bad 1950’s song or maybe I should say 1980’s. ‘First base, second base, third base, home run’ is a very Shakespearian crass joke in America, a crude joke for full copulation. I’m just being as minimalist as I can, but it conjures up lots of images – well one image I should say.
- NME 22nd April 1989
Letter To Memphis *added*
It was a letter to Memphis, Egypt, to the great love of my life during her past life in that part of the world.
- Complete B Sides Liner Notes
Levitate Me
Lovely Day
Make Believe *added*
David Lovering sings lead. He kept us very entertained with his obsesion with Debbie Gibson, and that's waht this song is about
- Complete b sides liner notes
Manta Ray *new*
I like Joey's solo.
- Complete B sides liner notes
Monkey Gone To Heaven
‘This monkey’s gone to heaven’ is not connected to the rest of the song at all, it was the working lyric and we couldn’t come up with anything better.
I’m not really trying to address any issue: the sky and the ocean are both very ancient, spiritual and mythological places. And I’m just trying to talk about them in surreal kinds of ways: there’s a hole in the ozone layer scientifically, but the unreal side is that there’s a hole in the sky and the sky means a lot of things and has a lot of implications to lots of people in different cultures in past, present and future, right? Like the man dying from the sludge in the water in New Jersey, is just me getting mythological again. It’s Neptune I picture dying from the pollution.
- NME 22nd April 1989
"It's a reference from what I understand to be Hebrew numerology, and I don't know a lot about it or any of it really. I just remember someone telling me of the supposed fact that in the Hebrew language, especially in the Bible, you can find lots of references to man in the 5th and Satan in the 6th and God in the 7th. I don't know if there is a spiritual hierarchy or not. But it's a neat little fact, if it is a fact. I didn't go to the library and figure it out."
- Alternative Press Vol. IV No. 22, September 1989
I was just talking about the ocean and space: "There was a guy lived under the sea killed by ten millions tons of sludge.” If some Neptune figure killed by sludge is political then I'm a green guy. But if I wanted to move people politically I wouldn't do it like that
- Vox July 1991
*new*
I said 'Hey I'm Frank Black' and he went 'huh?' and I said 'this monkey's gone to heaven' and he just melted
-KEXP Radio Station Interview
Motorway To Roswell
Mr. Grieves
It’s about the end of the world I guess. Mr Grieves is the Death character of mythology. The ‘man in the middle’ is Dr Doolittle, because if you could speak to the animals you would be the great link between mankind and the animal world. There’s this theory that if not smarter than us, animals are aware of what’s going on and if we could communicate with them, they could give us the answer of the future and make everything ok. But I’m assuming that a nuclear winter will mean that Mr Grieves is going to win in the end.
- NME 22nd April 1989
Nimrod's Son
No. 13 Baby
This is a collage of images of when I was growing up in Los Angeles. Number 13 traditionally means bad luck, but in America, especially in the 60’s among bikers and chicanos, the number 13 is the thirteenth letter of the alphabet: M for marijuana.
It’s a really goofy sub culture, but it’s kinda funny, and even today you can see it spray-painted on walls ‘The Meter Boys Number 13’. So it is about a Mexican girl or a Samoan girl, a boyish, sexual, adolescent collage of Southern California living.
- NME April 22nd 1989
Oh My Golly!
Oh, she's a surfer, the song in which Rosa is named. She's a surfer girl, walks along the Beach of Binones, has a surfboard, very beautiful
- Option 21 July/August 1988
Palace Of The Brine
Planet Of Sound
River Euphrates *added*
The boogie sequence at the end of River Euphrates is 'a fake Jesus And Mary Chain song'.
- Frank Interview in Sound
Rock Music
Rock-A-My-Soul
Santo
Silver
This is a song me and Kim wrote really fast one night sitting around bored in the studio waiting for whatever to happen with the engineers. There were other lyrics that were supposed to have been written for the actual song but all we’d got left were the original phrases that we came up with so that was that
- NME April 22nd 1989
Something Against You
Space (I Believe In) *added*
That's going to be called Space or Space I Believe In or something like that. There's a few songs that haven't been titled yet. Yeah. He (Gil Norton) didn't like the words at all at first. He hated it. So I stuck with it.
- Fortune City
Stormy Weather
Subbacultcha
Tame
I don’t want to sound like a male chauvinist, but I have a male perspective, because I am male. ‘Tame’ is about women more than men. But the way some men treat their hair it’s incredible and I can[‘t] understand all that deodorant and stuff. I’ve never related to it. My family’s rather spartan.
It’s about putting all that time into sexual presentation. I don’t mean it in a dirty kind of way. Where I live in the city, women spend time presenting themselves and still come out forever bland and mediocre.
- NME 22nd April 1989
The Happening
That's based on this guy Billy Goodman, who had a radio talk show out of Las Vegas, The Billy Goodman Happening, dedicated to UFO stuff people calling in to tell of how their husband got murdered by an alien. The song The Happening tells of how the aliens land in Vegas: it's always been my wish that if they do land, it'll be Billy and his audience that get the credit in the greeting!
- Q September 1990
The Holiday Song
The Navajo Know
The Sad Punk
There's a song I've written, 'The Sad Punk', which is a bit like that: a kid walking along and thinking about the dinosaur bones beneath his feet. I guess because it's about extinction, people are gonna say that's ecological too
- Vox July 1991
The Thing
This one is a sonnet
- Music Express, October 1990
*added*
A re-mix of the outro section of the happening from Bossanova. A tale of messianic arrival in Las Vegas
- Complete b sides liner notes
Theme From Narc
It's a very modern song, probably written by a Japanese computer programmer in a 12-bar blues style. Narc is a narcotics officer, and in the game you basically run around blowing away drug dealers. It's very funny
- Vox July 1991
(the song comes from a pocket Nintendo game that the band have become obsessed with during the year. Charles, however, has managed to kick the habit, and his adaptation of the song is his tribute to the portable pastime)
There Goes My Gun
There’s nothing to this apart from that one line. It’s the hook right? It’s the chorus. I could have written a verse but it sounded cool without the lyrics so it’s much more effective and theatrical. These are just popular phrases I would associate with having a gun, ‘Looka me’ because it’s a position of power. I don’t own a gun, I’m afraid of them.
People keep asking me is this some sort of phallic symbol, you know ‘There goes my gun’, an orgasm. I mean I suppose that could be true but I get the impression that in the literary world anything that is taller than it is wide is a phallic, you know what I mean? I’m just talking about guns I guess. I just want to make a cool rock ‘n’ roll song.
- NME 22nd April 1989
Tony's Theme *new*
Maybe I read it on FrankBlack.net or something, 'What's the best, what's the worst?' and someone said 'that Tony's Theme song really stinks', and I was like 'yeah, that song does kinda stink
Frank Black Interviewed on BBC 6 Music 15th October 2003
Trompe Le Monde
U-Mass
Vamos
Velouria
Velouria: that was My Victoria, pretty good, but The Kinks song . . . I don't know it's gotta be a good song to get away with it. But when I found "Velouria", it sounded great
- Q September 1990
Well, the sister continent of Atlantis is Lemuria, sank in the Pacific Ocean, and the remnants of a culture are holed up in Mount Shasta, which is in Northern California - its a hollowed out mountain. They live in the mountain today, because it's an ongoing kind of thing. So lemur skin, fur, Velouria rhymes with Lemuria... kind of, and that's sort of what that's all about.
- MTV
Velvety Instrumental Version
Watch What You're Doing
Wave Of Mutilation
Mostly I try to stick with more physical imagery just because it’s more tangible mentally than he or she or it, like 'Little Red Corvette.'
The first line is a joke on The Beach Boys and Charles Manson. They hung out together and all that. And he wrote this song called ‘Cease To Exist.’ And supposedly The Beach Boys used a lot of his lyrics and gave him a sports car or something. And they had this boys loved girl song where they went ‘cease to resist’ and changed his lyrics around. They couldn’t have ‘cease to exist’ because it was all powerful suicide stuff! He’s just some glorified charismatic figure like Hitler. But he does say some interesting things, he’s a result of something but I don’t know what.
- NME 22nd April 1989
"The first verse is about the phenomenon where Japanese businessmen were putting their whole family in the car and driving off the dock. The second verse features the Marianas Trench. The only Pixies song I've played as a solo guy."
- Frank Black in SELECT, October 1997
I guess I've always lived kind of near the ocean. I never got to live for too long in one place, but I like oceans in general. I think the ocean's an inspiration for anybody. It's the other part of the earth. There's land and then there's the ocean, and it's even bigger. There's nothing in there man, but it's just a big blank space. Kind of scary too, for everybody, even for people that aren't afraid to die in it, like the captain of the ship. The watery deaths and everything that lives there, food, fish and animals. Just amazing stuff.
- Alternative Press Vol. IV No. 22, September 1989
(song about Japanese businessmen who commit suicide when made redundant.)
*added*
People would listen to something like Wave Of Mutilation and think, 'Oh yeah, murder, crucifixion, extermination', but it was really just a song about sea currents and nice animals. It was nothing to do with cutting throats.
- Black Francis in Melody Maker
*added*
Wave Of Mutilation attempted to intertwine The Beach Boys with Charlie Manson
- Frank in Melody Maker
Wave Of Mutilation (UK Surf) *new*
The slow version got even a bigger reaction from the audiences than the more rockin' version from Doolittle. I guess mellow can sometimes be much more rockin'.
- Complete B Sides liner notes
Weird At My School
That’s a composite of other people's stories. For some reason all the songs I did are from different details of other people's stories. One of the most interesting stories was a couple of kids in high school, real rich kids. Their dad had a plane. They fucking flew the plane to Columbia. They loaded up the plane, they flew there and back. They were 16. I didn't go. I wish my youth was that exciting.
- Alternative Press Vol. IV No. 22, September 1989
*new*
A song from our early repertoire. We probably recorded it several times. It displays a certain kind of hyperness that is very much the pixies, especially when we started out.
- Complete B sides liner notes
Where Is My Mind?
Wild Honey Pie
Winterlong
It's one of my favourite Neil Young songs. It's like an Everly Brothers song. It's really 50's. He doesn't play it 50's, he plays it really slow, country, twangy. But we sped it up a little bit and we took out his guitar parts and added Pixies' style guitar, but we kept it basically the same and kept it a good pop song, because that's what it was really. We're pretty proud of it. It sounds better than anything we've ever done, which is a shame because we didn't write it
- Alternative Press Vol. IV No. 22, September 1989
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| 17 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| fbc |
Posted - 04/06/2006 : 03:59:08
(bit long but what the heck, these fingers were made for typin')
BAM THWOK
So we were rehearsing for these shows. And then Charles was at the airport leaving, so he calls me from the airport: The Shrek people just called the manager. They wanted to see if we want to do the song from the title sequence for Shrek 2. I go, "Oh, that sounds like fun." You know, Joey has a kid now and stuff. So Charles said, "I'll try and work up something in Portland, you guys try to work up something." And Joe has a Pro Tools studio in his basement, and he lives really close by, and me and him were getting Starbucks together. So I would just pick up the Starbucks and go to his house, to his basement. And he got the videotape of the title sequence that they wanted us to do. And Joe had done soundtacks, so he had a whole system. So I was playing Joe a couple things, licks, that I had. And there was one that he worked up, and when Charles had come down for something he listened to that. He had something, it was cute, I liked his, too. But David and Joe and Charles were all there and they thought mine was a poppier, more kid-friendly thing so we kinda worked it up a little bit in Joe's Pro Tools thing. And then the Shrek 2 people gave us some money to go into a demo place to demo it. So we did. And that demo is what's coming out [the iTunes-only single]. And they didn't take it.
In the last '90s in New York City I had found this discarded book on the floor, and I'm always looking for paper. There was a lot of it that was not written on. It was almost like a black book, like a graph person's book but it was from a child. That's how it first began. I was using it to write - Kelley was sitting at the apartment and they told me they wanted to use the piece of music and I thought, "Oh, crap, now I have to write lyrics - oh, well here's some paper," and I kind of looked through some rows and found some of these old words sitting there that I thought were kind of funny and Bam Thwok was one of them. It was a story about a party with monsters or something. On other pages there are some old drawings of a ladybug and stuff like that. But that's how it started. And then I just wanted to keep it kind of clean, not too condescendingly stupid and clean. But they didn't want it.
Kim Deal, 'Fool the World: the oral history of Chuck's band'.
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| fbc |
Posted - 04/06/2006 : 03:25:39
(for the collection)
http://membres.lycos.fr/alec/titles.html
Blown Away
Pretty much a down-the-line love song, though a frustrated love"
"Like one of those Neil Young love songs that exist out there in space somewhere. It's not about anyone or anything specifically. It's not about her eyes our the back of her knees." (BF in Melody Maker)
BONE MACHINE
"The imagery is a reference to female anatomy - the pelvis as a sexual area of life. It's an area that people move and swing when they dance." (Frank Black in SELECT, October 1997)
CARIBOU
"It gets into a bit of animism, maybe a little of reincarnation. My focus was the hunt, the caribou. It was good to play - very loud, with a nice little triplet swing going on." (Frank Black in SELECT, October 1997)
CECILIA ANN
"Our nod to the glory of surf music. We'd actually rehearsed 'Apache' by the Shadows, but we ended up doing this." (Frank Black in SELECT, October 1997)
HEAD ON
"This song was continuously played on the radio while we were recording the album. It was too fresh in memories to cover it. That's why we did it" (BF)
MAKE BELIEVE
"A song I wrote for David Lovering, a love song for Debbie Gibson. When we recorded it originally I doubled up the drums and it sounded way Gary Glitter, way Clash. I loved it but it was a little too like The Dickies and Ciccone Youth and those guys do it best." (BF in NME)
NIMROD'S SON
"The Nimrod was the Nimrod of the Old Testament. The Biblical thing, I think, has always been part of rock. Y'know, Jerry Lewis, 'Great Balls of Fire'..." (Frank Black in SELECT, October 1997)
PLANET OF SOUND
"An alien intercepts messages from earth. He goes from a planet to another, but each time he is told that this is not the planet of sound" (BF)
"The lyric is meant to be sung by an alien. It's a romantic notion - our planet has the phenomenon of sound that occurs nowhere else. So the aliens refer us as The Planet Of Sound. That was the perspective." (Frank Black in SELECT, October 1997)
SUBBACULTCHA
"An old song, that I wrote for a girl who afterwards became my girlfriend. She didn't know it was for her, but I think she had some doubts. This is a very aggressive song" (BF)
HOLIDAY SONG
"Yeah, that's the one with the mastubatory reference. Kind of a sea-shanty thing - 'He's painted her on the sheets'. It might be an incest thing. But, y'know, I don't have any sisters or anything..." (Frank Black in SELECT, October 1997)
THE NAVAJO KNOW
"About mohicans who work on construction sites. They are amazing. 'Navajo' is here for the rhyme only"
U-MASS
"That's probably me trying to be Joe Strummer. The lyrics are kind of a thumbs-down commentary about yound people in a University atmosphere." (Frank Black in SELECT, October 1997)
WHERE IS MY MIND?
"That came from me snorkelling in the Caribbean and having this very small fish trying to chase me. I don't know why - I don't know too much about fish behaviour." (Frank Black in SELECT, October 1997) |
| Holy Fingers |
Posted - 04/05/2006 : 08:34:08
Wow. These threads are spilling the info. So much to be lapped up. I love it.
 "When you've done something right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all" |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 04/04/2006 : 12:41:50
If I remember rightly, I shoved it there because he was asked about gouge away and that was his answer, he answered one about dead and described gouge away so I think they are slightly interchangable like that. I will switch it though, because you are wise. |
| Broken Face |
Posted - 04/04/2006 : 12:35:36
Tre, you have a quote about Bathsheba under 'Gouge Away' but it should be under 'Dead'
-Brian
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| starmekitten |
Posted - 04/04/2006 : 11:57:07
I'm just adding a bunch of quotes now, I have absolutely no idea why that last one is all bold though, that's weird..
[edit] nope, that's just me being a fool |
| kathryn |
Posted - 03/25/2006 : 10:46:09
Thanks, SoKD. I listened to it and here are the highlights, in my opinion:
Frank on "Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons": "It's just a song about a bird and he's flying around and then, like most birds, he flies into his tree at night and sleeps and then he dreams, and then he dreams about the Olympus Mons, which is the tallest mountain on Mars, a volcanic mountain, like 10 times the size of Everest or something."
Frank on Pixies lyrics (perhaps specifically Monkey lyrics?): "They don't seem weird to me. They seem perfectly lyric-y to me as far as lyrics are concerned."
Frank on penning UFO-related lyrics: "I think I made the mistake, if you will, of going into UFO territory, because that wasn't well received."
Not song-related, but noteworthy: Frank putting on a British accent; what sounded like a snippet of live version of Memphis; and:
Kim: " 'It's just the color, the color ... nahh nahh nahh.' Which one's that one?"
Frank: "Brick is Red."
Kim: "Brick is Red."
I’m the only one who can say that this light is mine
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| SoKD |
Posted - 03/25/2006 : 09:32:26
BAILEY'S WALK:
"It's about a guy I used to see all over San Juan. He could only take a couple of steps before he had to tap himself on the head an do a little spin". (Frank Black, "complete "b" sides" liner notes). Hmm... "with your feet on the air and your head on the ground, try this trick and spin it"...
MAKE BELIEVE:
David Lovering sings lead. He kept us very entertained with his obsesion with Debbie Gibson, and that's waht this song is about (FB, ibidem)
THE THING:
A re-mix of the outro section of the happening from Bossanova. A tale of messianic arrival in Las Vegas. (FB, ibidem)
LETTER TO MEMPHIS:
It was a letter to Memphis, Egypt, to the great love of my life during her past life in that part of the world. (FB, ibidem)
If you feel like "plundering", aleceffel.net has a lot of quotes (in the "titles" section).
I also think that somewhere here http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/media/g2/onemusic/docs/pixies531.ram Frank Black talks about Bam Thwok, but I may be wrong. |
| The New Bolero |
Posted - 03/23/2006 : 05:18:39
What about Kim on Bam Thwok...
"From the handwriting, you could tell that this book must have belonged to a little kid," Deal recounts. "This kid had written a short story, a paragraph really, about a party that took place in another universe, about people and monsters that were partying together. That's what provided the inspiration for the lyrics." The song is a musical romp, and features a driving beat, searing guitar, and the whimsical chorus, "Love. Bang. Crash. Wakka, wakka, Bam Thwok." "It's a song about loving everyone," Deal added, "showing good will to everyone."
You know, for the completists. |
| PixieSteve |
Posted - 03/22/2006 : 17:32:32
after all, ana is a better name than acr.
 |
| kathryn |
Posted - 03/22/2006 : 17:18:17
It's both a palindrome and an acrostic, but not an anagram, as Frank would have us think. Though perhaps he's just being cute and playing on the ana part of anagram.
I got some heaven in my head
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| VoVat |
Posted - 03/22/2006 : 17:14:10
Of course, "Ana" ISN'T an anagram, but an acrostic. Unless the letters also can be rearranged to spell something else.
"If you doze much longer, then life turns to dreaming. If you doze much longer, then dreams turn to nightmares." |
| fbc |
Posted - 03/22/2006 : 12:18:40
Space (I Believe In)
I talked to Gil Norton a few weeks ago on the phone, I continued, and he seemed really pleased with a song on the new album called Backwards and Forwards.
"That's going to be called Space or Space I Believe In or something like that. There's a few songs that haven't been titled yet."
He wasn't too sure what you're words would be like, but they just seemed to fit into place.
"Yeah. He didn't like the words at all at first. He hated it. So I stuck with it.
http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/drumandbass/1266/blackfrancis.htm |
| kathryn |
Posted - 03/22/2006 : 12:08:31
awesome work, tre!
fyi re: the happening
http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/bgoodund.html#Steve
I got some heaven in my head
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| Garbonzia |
Posted - 03/22/2006 : 11:59:53
great!
i hope we'll find more quotes! |
| Carl |
Posted - 03/22/2006 : 11:47:01
Good stuff. I have that issue of Mondo that the Distance Equals..quote is taken from.
 pas de dutchie! |
| Cult_Of_Frank |
Posted - 03/22/2006 : 10:04:17
Wow. Quite the copius compilatory compendium.
 "If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate." |
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