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Rating:
I didn’t know them once, then a friend 7 years older told me: if I were you, I would listen to Pavement.
I was totally missing the basics... Such an extraordinary, dirty, damn low-fi band, so laid-back that they drag you along. With every listen, it feels like they’re playing in the next room or in the garage; they are there with you. You expect at any moment that one of them will come in the room to ask for a glass of water. They will be with you always and everywhere.
Slanted & Enchanted. They already tell you how you'll feel after listening... One wonders how it’s possible to make an album that captures you after one listen yet never gets old. There are no peaks; you remain hopelessly among the stars, unable to come down until the 39th minute. Revolutionary. That’s what Pavement still are. They dress masterpiece tracks as sloppy, dirty, schizophrenic songs, but there remains that incredulity, that magic, that certain something like a band next door.
Like women. The best are those you’ve always had right before your eyes, whom you never noticed, and then suddenly they capture you and never let you go, never again.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Summer Babe (Winter Version) (03:16)
ICE BABY
I SAW YOUR GIRLFRIEND
SHE'S EATING HER FINGERS
LIKE THEY'RE JUST ANOTHER MEAL
SHE WAITS THERE
IN THE LEVEE WASH
MIXING COCKTAILS WITH A PLASTIC TIPPED CIGAR...
MY EYES STICK TO
ALL THOSE SHINY ROBES...WEAR
ON THE PROTEIN DELTA STRIP
IN AN ABANDONED HOUSEBOAT
ILL WAIT THERE, ILL BE WAITING FOREVER...
MINERALS
ICE DEPOSITS DAILY
DROP OFF THE FIRST SHINY ROBE
IVE GOT ALOT OF THINGS I WANT TO SELL YOU
THERE NOT HERE
YOU TOOK IT ALL
EVERYTIME I TURN AROUND I FIND IM SHOT
YOU'RE MY...
SUMMER BABE
04 In the Mouth a Desert (03:52)
can you treat it like an oil well
when it's underground out of sight
and if the sight is just a whore sign
can it make enough sense to me
pretend the table is a trust knot
we'll put our labels down, faith is down
and watch the yards of twine unravel
and you'll never get it back
it's what I want (it's what I want)
it's what I want (one gets down)
it's what I want (it's what I want)
don't you know
I could make it dry, make it dry, make it dry
make it dry
I've been crowned, the king of it
and it is all we have so wait
to hear my words and they're diamond sharp
I could open it up if it's up and down
it's what I want (it's what I want)
I see a bagluck, a little bar (all on time)
don't you know that it's what I want
(that's what I want)
I see your bag and it makes me try
make me try, make me try, make me try
I've been down, the king of it
and it is all we have, I've been down
if I could wait to hear those words
they're diamond sharp today
05 Conduit for Sale! (02:52)
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin' and I'll try (2x)
Imagine if you will Herr Proctor
Alias and nobleman
Son of son of sky, and of scion
Part of his rich inheritance
Parceled and generous divorce
Sentence forthwith being
Certain blocks of land
And living quarters deemed
By all gentlemen
And wives thereof
To be grossly humane
And frankly, quite un-dirty
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin' and I'll try (2x)
Herr Proctor
In his enviable good taste
Tries quick escape gambit
Via local periodicals
But no takers land an enviable station
In the conduit between two selves
A veritable no-man's-land
Array of the flophouse cardboard materials
And carbon-monoxide wallpaper
All his brig-deck Torino boys ask
Is irrelevant...
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin' and I'll try (2x)
Unable to bear the scandal, Ray, philanthropist
Rents low-down scab house in conduit
Herr Barockter offers said land for a song,
But no one wants to sing
In an attempt to retain social privileges
Yet mask it as goodwill
He says to the conduit members,
"Take this rotten old tree and make it bear fruit."
Cheers erupted throughout the thin settlement;
An Italian male was heard to say,
"Between here and there
Is better than anything over there!"
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin' and I'll try (3x)
06 Zurich Is Stained (01:41)
i can't sing it strong enough:
that kind of strength i just don't have.
if you watch the lights change please
don't hold them hanging
you think it's easy, but you're wrong
i'm not one half of the problem
zurich is stained and it's not my fault
just hold me back or let me run
what does it mean, a mistake or two
if it's the kind of mistake no one can trace
to the fountain where we sold it
and held them hanging.
you think it's easy, but you're wrong
i'm not one half of the problem
zurich is stained and it's not my fault
just hold me back or let me run
08 Loretta's Scars (02:55)
how can i [3x]
make my body shed for you?
how can i [3x]
make my body shed around your
metal scars
loretta's scars [3x]
from now on i can see the sun
makes me anxious, makes me run
from now on i can see the sun
makes me nervous, makes me run
how can i [3x]
make my body shed for you?
how can i [3x]
make my body shed around your
metal scars
loretta's scars [3x]
from now on i can see the sun
makes me anxious, makes me run
from now on i can see the sun
makes me nervous, makes me run
from now on i can see the sun
i can see the sun etc.
10 Two States (01:47)
two states!
we want two states
north and south
two, two states
40 Million Daggers! [x4]
two states!
we want two states
there's no culture
there's no spies
40 million daggers! [x4]
11 Perfume-V (02:09)
fun for an hour til the hour's gone
can one trick nights feed 40 days?
in my bed at the break of dawn
she shivered like a vein slashed bright and new
she's got the radio active and it makes me feel ok (i don't feel ok) [x2]
grip-force the vials and strip the locks
smash the set & slash the beds
and when it looks life a wife's ex-plot
we'll cover all the rugs with cheap perfume
she's got the radio active and it makes me feel ok (i don't feel ok) [repeat]
like a docent's lisp, like a damsel's spit, like a dry gin's twist (of lime)
like a poor droll sir, like a pike's dull spurs, like a pastor's flock (of sheep)
12 Fame Throwa (03:22)
fame throwa pass out the gold,
the diamon watch the last reward,
all the things we had before
you sold us out and took it all
head-borne cries from zenith sluts
astral rites from dead-end ruts
these ends are sickened wars [x2]
he's one of our nation's spies
he's one of our first recruits
i click with her leather thighs
he's one of our first recruits
how can you know?
in the distance lies a grower,
n閑 Rudolph, king fame throwa,
son of groupie, bed-worn sexan
spent his cash convincing us
that the desert was a starscape
took our lives for satellites so we could cry:
naked, naked, foul.
he's one of our nation's spies
he's one of our first recruits
i click with her leather thighs
he's one of our first recruits
14 Our Singer (03:09)
i've been waitin'
anticipatin'
sun comes up
the skies won't sink my soul
i've dreamt of this
but is never comes
but it never comes
the risin'
the natures dry
folk!
i've been dreamin'
traced out but dreamin'
the sun coems up
the blisters burn my soul
i'm dreamin
of something now
of something now
of the risin'
the natures dry
and all the groovey ones (?)
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Other reviews
By negativenein
Pavement invades you, they lend themselves to all kinds of listening, from attentive and presumptuously cultured to free, evasive, and completely uncritical.
In the composition of the piece... a carefreeness transpires as a cure from anxieties and frustrations and not as gratuitous disengagement.
