My personal knowledge of ‘Velouria’ by Pixies goes back a while. Again, it’s the setting of being a kid in front of the television, watching MTV2 at some hour during the day, and being exposed to the song’s video when it came up on the screen. I’ll say it was about 2005 time, that sounds about right. Pixies were a band that I’d sort of known about for a year by then. A couple of their songs played on this Internet radio service provided by a company called Launch, or LaunchCast, which I think eventually got bought out by Yahoo! I believe ‘Build High’ (the demo) and ‘Here Comes Your Man’ were the first two Pixies songs I ever heard because of it. But the video for ‘Velouria’ was most likely the first time I’d seen the four guys. Or three guys and one lady if you want to be pedantic about it. It’s 17 seconds of the bandmembers stumbling among a bunch of massive rocks stretched out for the song’s length. They weren’t fans of making music videos. Ten-year-old me liked the song there and then. I tried to download the song online. All I could find was Weezer’s cover. I got my hands on the original, eventually.

The track was released as the first single from the band’s third studio album Bossanova. That’s an album I’ve yet to listen to in full, even though I should, knowing the music I’m into. Because the depth of attachment I have to the song doesn’t go deeper than “I heard the song once as a child and really liked it,” I don’t think I’ll be gushing over it quite as much as I might have done for other songs in the past. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have any admiration for it of any kind. Black Francis/Frank Black said he didn’t like making music video ’cause “you want your imagination, you know?” And my imagination does go running when ‘Velouria’ comes on. I envision wide open spaces, panning shots of vast landscapes. Might be down to the big-sounding guitars. Might be down to how Francis sounds like he’s singing from an entirely different plane of existence. There’s also that theremin that comes in at various points, makes things sound a little spacey, which from what I’ve read is a bit of a theme running through Bossanova. I’ll get to that album one day. I might have already by the time you read this.

I’m looking through Wikipedia as I type, seeking out some background info for myself ’cause I’m really learning about it just as much as you are. According to it, we’ll say it’s based off a source even though it’s not cited, ‘Velouria’ was written as a love song based on an experience Black Francis had “with a girl associated with the Rosicrucians of Northern California.” Sounds like a strange organisation that I’m not going to look further into. I hear “love song” in ‘Velouria’. I think it’s obvious in the lyrics. The track is one of devotion to the ‘Velouria’ character, who Francis sings about wanting to hold hands with and travel through space and time. A bit of an “us against the world” thing going on, but with some abstractness to it so the schmaltziness isn’t rammed into your ears. “How does lemur skin reflect the sea?” It is a good question. The worship of Velouria culminates with Kim Deal sing-spelling out her name in the track’s final moments, surely a nod to Patti Smith’s ‘Gloria’, which – I don’t know about you – is my favourite part. Puts the cherry on top, as they say.