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 What Velouria is about

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chrisislies Posted - 07/29/2004 : 00:34:54
This song sounds like what it feels like to be in love.





....i'm stoned.

i'm out.
21   L A T E S T    R E P L I E S    (Newest First)
shas Posted - 08/21/2004 : 23:56:31
i wish i could know better what velouria means, buuuut, i was born in a little cottage at the bottom of mt. shasta in McCloud, i was named shastina(its the female mountain right next to shasta), and i love the pixies. this song reminds me that i was born in a very special place and makes me appreciate the pixies even more. makes me feel connected to them...
i sound like a friggin HIPPY, oh wait, i am one

also, i used to live in amherst, MA a couple blocks away from u-mass where some of the band went to college...wish i had been alive back then

i do try to maintain a certain...sheen
VoVat Posted - 08/17/2004 : 13:18:26
I think Frank has said that "Velouria" was a combination of the material Velour and the name Victoria.



Cattle in Korea / They can really moo.
The Sad Punk Posted - 08/17/2004 : 11:18:31
No no, Velouria comes from Velorio, in portuguese it is the name of the religious cult that people make when someone die. Frank also used some other portuguese words in the Bossanova, "Encantou-se" in Rock Music.. and he also used the word "bossanova" in Hang Wire; Bossanova is an typical brazilian music. (I'll bossanova with you)


The Sad Punk

I smell smoke that comes from a 12 gauge PUMP shotgun named extintion.
VoVat Posted - 08/05/2004 : 17:48:49
It was a lyric from "Velouria" that somebody (not me) misheard.

And yeah, a lemur is an animal. They're native to Madagascar.





Cattle in Korea / They can really moo.
Avid-Fan Posted - 08/05/2004 : 16:53:39
Isn't a Lemur an animal, like a monkey?

and btw Signor VoVat, I always thought your signature
[Cattle in Korea / They can really moo] was a lyric from Velouria, go figure...


(( I talk plain talk ))
psychocandy Posted - 08/05/2004 : 13:03:54
i´m sure, no doubts... velouria and the lemurians are related. the weird slowly motion video of Velouria it was made up just above the mythic mountain.

eau
joshuagingery Posted - 08/05/2004 : 07:59:38
So what you are all saying is that this song has NOTHING to do with Linda Carter? On the slim chance that it does, would it be the Linda Carter during the Wonder Woman era or the "I always play the battered wife in LifeTime entertainment for women movies" Linda Carter?

boobs rule!
twist Posted - 08/05/2004 : 07:41:31
quote:
Originally posted by peter radiator


Perhaps some of us on this forum (myself included) think about such things WAY too much...

~ Peter Radiator





Not at all, if it weren't for you FB scholars I wouldn't have 250 pages(& growing exponentially) of interviews comments insights and websites of all things frankblackian. What's more important, that which inspires you or that which you gotta do to survive?

I always thought it was about some overwhelmingly special place covered in velour, memories of which produce impossible to describe in this language romantic yearnings.
n/a Posted - 08/04/2004 : 14:00:56
quote:
Originally posted by Cheeseman1000

Maybe it genuinely is about the material velour.



Kind regards,
Dr. Simon
Specialist In Broken Hearts



If you switch 'Shasta Sheen' for 'Velveteen' it sort of works...

Frank Black ate my Hamster

rhinedly Posted - 08/03/2004 : 21:29:09
more important than the encrypted meanings and story of the song is the feel of the music. i have just now gotten myself stoned and am now listening to velouria on repeat while speaking to online and thinking about the (unrequited) love of my life (i confess my teenagedom).

chrisislies is right.


Smart Alec Posted - 08/03/2004 : 00:49:22
Wow, this stuff is great! At least I can make SOME sense of those lyrics now, and I finally know what's up with the lemur! :)

"Love Bang Crash a waka waka"
VoVat Posted - 08/02/2004 : 11:53:21
Wasn't the lost continent of Lemuria named after the lemurs, because people thought it was odd that they lived only in Madagascar, and decided they must have come from some other place?



Cattle in Korea / They can really moo.
peter radiator Posted - 08/02/2004 : 09:13:29
I don't have the transcript in front of me, but around the time of the release of Devil's Workshop/Black Letter Days, I interviewed Frank, and we spoke about the remake of "Velvety," which had originally been released as an instrumental on a Pixies b-side and now sported lyrics.

I recall that he said he always liked the riff of the song, which was originally named as a nod to the fact that it sounded a lot like The Velvet Underground (and in my opinion, quite obviously the instrumental run-through of "Guess I'm Falling In Love" from the mid-'80s outtakes compilation Another View).

He was tempted to let it remain an instrumental, but because he had titled the first one "instrumental version," on a whim, he felt compelled to match words to it. He then said that although he did not set out to, at some point he realized that he had actually wound up re-telling the narrative of "Velouria."

It seems to me that he is using a very Dylanesque lyrical conceit, in that he's created a fictional alien dreamgirl with some sort of implied link to the legend of Lemuria, but then made the grammatical leap of transposing the attributes and animus of the alien onto a known species of animal: the Lemur – which is not indigenous to the area he's speaking of (California).

The woman/alien/Lemur beckons to him during a car/motorcycle trip through the desert, and subsequently entrances him. In the end, it is ambiguous whether or not the creature also references (or in some way represents) an actual romantic interest of his in real life, but tempting nonetheless to look for such cryptic references, as they seem to crop up from time to time in a handful of his other songs.

Perhaps some of us on this forum (myself included) think about such things WAY too much...

~ Peter Radiator

"Real music is out there and real people are making it." ~ Webb Wilder
chickenwithtwoheads Posted - 08/01/2004 : 18:45:32
this is what can be found on the Alec Eiffel website, and YES, according to CT it's a love song..:

VELOURIA
"A space girl who could come from Bowie's world, a friend of Ziggy Stardust. "Velours" with an "a" at the end sounds like "Victoria"" (reference to the song by The Kinks) (BF)

"At a Black Francis solo gig at McCabe's circa '91, he introduced "Velouria" by saying it was about a woman who lived in a mountain (or something similar). Mt. Shasta is located in Northern California ("I know she's here / in California / I can see the tears / of Shasta sheen"). "Shasta sheen" could be how the mountain looks in the sunlight when it is covered in snow. Or when it's covered in Velouria's tears." (reported by Ryan E. Vincent)

"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." (Black Francis in a Q article)

"I had to rewrite that lyric several times. It was just too cryptic. Too 'Dungeons & Dragons'. I guess it's harking back to Billy Goodman (cf. The Happening). In California, there's this thing about the Lemurians, the sister people to the Atlanteans, whose civilisation sank and they all took off in boats and went to live in Mount Shasta in California. I just thought it was great. Velouria; the sci-fi girl. A love song about time travel." (BF in NME)

"Kind of a love song, but a lot of the content comes from the Rosicrucians. They believe in a lost continent called Lemuria. That sank and now the inhabitants are meant to live below Mount Shasta in California." (Frank Black in SELECT, October 1997)




I'm bored with the valleys and bored by the peaks. So I bought a ticket to the Pixies
VoVat Posted - 08/01/2004 : 18:09:59
Apparently some of the Lemurians came to live under Mount Shasta in California, which is located just a little bit south of a town called Weed. That would be why she's in California, and what "Shasta sheen" is referring to. (No, it isn't about the soda, as far as I know.)



Cattle in Korea / They can really moo.
Cheeseman1000 Posted - 08/01/2004 : 14:37:26
Maybe it genuinely is about the material velour.



Kind regards,
Dr. Simon
Specialist In Broken Hearts
misleadtheworld Posted - 08/01/2004 : 13:59:28
Maybe it's about a passion for French bicycle rides.


Little Black Francis Posted - 08/01/2004 : 13:48:03
I always thought it was curious that

VELO-uria

LOVE

you decide.

Floops quesedillas zijn te vergelijken met het likken van fatsige Albert's aars nadat hij een fles laxeermiddel heeft leeggedronkenhehehahhahehehaha
misleadtheworld Posted - 08/01/2004 : 13:34:56
I thought it was about Lemuria. You know, that sunken/hidden continent.

"Far in time" = sank a long time ago
"her covering" = the Pacific
"where have you been?" = swimming!
"i know she's here, in California" = It may have connected such land masses as Asia/Australia/Madagascar to the Americas.

I know Frnck once said "Velouria, it rhymes with Lemuria", or something similar.

Something like that.


rhinedly Posted - 08/01/2004 : 13:29:39
Hmm. There are a lot of songs about what it feels like to be in love.

Velouria, eh.

Well it is a damn good song. I've heard it credited as outlining the path that Weezer proceeded to take. When I first started downloading pixies songs (a few months ago incidentally), Velouria was about the fourth or fifth one, and it was the one that immediately stopped me dead in my tracks with RAPTURE and convinced me to take the band seriously.

Looking at the lyrics, thinking about it, you might be right. we will wade in the shine of the ever, we will wade in the tides of the summer, every summer, every my velouria, etc.

I confess I am a big fan of true love songs. The pixies do them well. Cactus is one of my favorite songs about lovin. And of course Gigantic. And Here Comes Your Man. And Hey, god i love Hey. if you go i will surely die, we're chained. La La Love you is good too but thats more about love in general than romantic love.

This is my first post.
Chip Away Boy Posted - 07/29/2004 : 00:49:52
hmmm

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