Tag Archives: pixies

#1459: Pixies – Velouria

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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.

#1349: Pixies – There Goes My Gun

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I have a feeling this song has the same sort of rep as the last one I wrote about a couple days ago. ‘There Goes My Gun’ isn’t the shortest song on Pixies’ Doolittle, but it’s pretty close to being so. It looks more like something to warm you up before getting into the meat of ‘Hey’ that follows. Might be considered something of a track of low importance. I’m not sure, I’m not within many circles who have Pixies in their listening radar who could verify whether that last sentence is the case or not. On Spotify, it does have the second lowest number plays on the album, so I’ll have to take that as some kind of consensus. But when it comes to me, I enjoy the hell out of it. Again, one of my favourites on this particular album, which some reading may find peculiar. Maybe not. I don’t know what to tell you. Sometimes it’s those short, unassuming numbers on certain albums that turn out to be the standouts for me.

The track is one of very few words/lines. They are as follows: “Yoo hoo”, “There goes my gun” – which as a chorus is repeated a number of times – “Look at me” and “Friend or foe”. Very economical, indeed. A prime example showing you don’t need much into order to make a song. Least in terms of the lyrics. According to frontman Black Francis/Frank Black/Charles Thompson, the song is a scene where the narrator is yelling each verse into a sort of dark abyss/expanse of space before proceeding to shoot their gun as they continue to get no kind of response. That’s certainly a unique situation for inspiration of a song. I like the track for its minor-keyness, which doesn’t make it sound sad but more threatening like something’s about to jump out the shadows and strike, and for its heavy swinging motion. I feel like I’ve written a lot about swinging feels in songs lately. What’s this one in, 12/8? That can be the best time signature.

Doolittle is an album full of unhinged vocal performances by Francis. ‘There Goes My Gun’… actually might be one that comes a little lower on that spectrum. Maybe in the middle. But he does provide a great contrast of yelling in the verses and switching to the melodic singing for the choruses. And then in those, Kim Deal responds to Francis’s ‘there goes my gun’ line… by repeating the same phrase, but with that sweet tone of hers in comparison. Those Francis-Deal vocal back-and-forths the highlight of many a Pixies song. It’s no different here. David Lovering’s pounding those drums, feels like there’s an extra oomph in those toms. Joey Santiago’s bending a string to make for an unusual guitar riff. And I don’t think I truly appreciated this song until I watched a video where I saw what Francis was doing on the rhythm guitar, particularly during the choruses. I’m sure it was the video, below, of them at Glastonbury in 1989. He goes on a run down the guitar neck before sliding up again and resolving into the minor-chord of the verse. Just adds that extra movement in the music. Thumbs up, thumbs up.

#937: Pixies – No. 13 Baby

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You go onto YouTube and search for this song. The majority of the comments go along the lines of “Man, this song’s good, but the ending though? Human perfection. Best endings of all time,” etcetera, etcetera. And, yeah, the song’s outro is quite special. But the rest of the song ain’t too bad. Black Francis/Frank Black sings with the usual unhinged style of vocal delivery, working well with the song’s theme of a stalker-like fascination with a lady. He describes the characteristics of this subject like some sort of mad scientist looking for another experiment, it’s quite menacing. The obsession is too much, as made clear in the “I’m in a state” repetition, and its seemingly never-ending fade-out ending signifies the endlessness of the situation. At least that’s how I like to think of it.

Doolittle is an album of subtle surprises. The lone guitar chord strum at the beginning of this one is just a small taste. But generally there will be elements of a certain track that you wouldn’t pick up on the first time, but after a number of listens make themselves more and more apparent. Like on ’13 Baby’, I never took into account how the verses are made of one chord that doesn’t progress into another until the choruses. Or how bassist Kim Deal just stops playing at certain points to highlight those bending guitar wails at various points. There’s also a subliminal shout-out during the choruses to a Los Angeles gang that was active around the time of the album’s making. The way it’s incorporated into them is real sneaky, once you get the melody and the words down you’ll barely know your singing it.

What’s peculiar about this track though is that the vocals are out of there after two minutes. The rest of the track is essentially its ending, what a lot of people love about it, consisting of a slow building of layers. Kim Deal and drummer David Lovering keep the track steady with the rhythm alongside Francis’ acoustic guitar. After a few measures, lead guitarist Joey Santiago rushes in with a frantic guitar fill. After that fades out, he re-enters with a dreamy arpeggiated chord that goes on and on before being drowned out by a wild rhythm guitar from Francis that sounds like it’s being strangled its chords are strummed. It’s all so hypnotizing up to that point, then that guitar adds a bit of nightmare fuel to the proceedings. It’s creepy, it’s sneaky, it all sounds so good. Pixies were very good at getting those things down.

My iPod #258: Pixies – Debaser

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“Debaser” is the crazy, loud and energetic opener to Pixies’ 1989 album “Doolittle”. Lead singer Black Francis wrote it after seeing a movie where the first scene shows an eyeball being slit by a razor.

I wish I had more to say about this song. But it’s just one of those that hasn’t had that much impact on my life than it probably has for many other people. I simply like it.

It’s not the first one of the band’s I listened to, that goes to “Velouria” or “Here Comes Your Man”….. maybe even “Build High” – my memory’s fading. But I do think I saw the official video (above) on TV and thought “What the hell, is this even a song?” or something along those lines. Francis’ yelling definitely threw me off the first time as it may do for any listener who hasn’t heard “Debaser” before. But listening to it along with the other fourteen tracks that accompany it on the album, it all made sense.