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Rating:
I just can't bring myself to review Doggerel, the latest work by the Pixies. What a shame, what a disappointment. Let's just say it was nice. And that I could never have imagined that a handful of songs could give me so much, filling and coloring my life for so long. Let that be enough for me. To console myself, I take refuge in the past and listen to the first album by the Breeders once again. And by once again, I mean for the five hundredth time, give or take. As they say, you never forget your first love. And I fell madly in love with this album and its leader right after the first prank by the Boston goblins, that Trompe le Monde in which it became clear that the reins of the project were now in the hands of the big guy, and that she, the divine, had become, unbelievably, too much for the project. I say unbelievably because Kim Deal remained in stunning artistic form during those years. This is demonstrated in this debut work of raw (thanks, Steve Albini) and dark beauty conceived together with Tanya Donnelly of Throwing Muses. An album that the good Kurt Cobain ranked highly in his personal chart, and that paved the way for the much more significant success of Last Splash and its Cannonball, in heavy rotation on MTV for quite a while. An album that reflects the complexity of a complex woman, worn down by her own ghosts but at the same time smiling, amused, welcoming. The songs are the unsettling product of these contradictions, conceived following only partially Pixies-related rules, and instead endowed with their own equally surprising identity. It starts with "Glorious," and for me, that would already be enough. The painful progression in 4/4 of a story of sexual abuse where each instrument bleeds something that has nothing to do with either the Pixies or grunge. A side road, musically simple and simultaneously dark, hostile. "Doe" brightens the atmosphere, but it's a deceit; they're two kids on acid wanting to burn their city. "Happiness is a warm gun" kicks the original's butt (and we're talking about the Beatles) pairing with another Beatles cover by Pixies (I'm talking about Honey Pie, another case of violent devotion to the white album, the root of many things). And I don't want to tire you, so I'll just mention "Fortunately Gone," which I long considered my perfect pop song and which even now, more than 30 years later, reminds me of the affection I felt for that high school friend who makes you laugh, makes you cry, the one you smoke your first joint with, the one who comforts you when things don't go well with the good-looking one of the moment, the one you'll always remain friends with; the one who at some point you see isn't herself anymore, who has something strange in her eyes, something you can't decipher and for some reason scares you because it feels like it's taking her away from you. Well, let me tell you, if you drifted apart, it's because of something described in the folds of this small, memorable, and mysterious album.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
01 Glorious (03:23)
Da-da...
Ahhh...
Hold my breath for three more year
Yeah, three years
On my own on Saturdays
It's glorious [2x]
We were tired from the tea
Scrabbled and we slept
Through the window came the rain
It's glorious [6x]
Being tired from the tea
Hold my breath for three more year
Yeah, three years
On my own on Saturdays
It's glorious [3x]
02 Doe (02:06)
Top this
Da-da...
Tripping
I walk to where he's sitting
It's all salty salty
He knows It's good, it's real, it's pretty
It's all salty Timmy
It's all salty Timmy
It's all salty Timmy
He said Doe Doe Doe
Dared leave
We've burned the field completely
Ahhh... last light
I feel it's real, it's pretty
It's all salty Timmy
It's all salty Timmy
It's all salty Timmy
He said Doe Doe Doe
03 Happiness Is a Warm Gun (02:46)
She's not a girl who misses much
Do-do-do, oh yeah
She's well acquainted
With the touch of a velvet hand
Like a lizard on a window pane
Man in the crowd
With the multicoloured mirrors
On his hobnail boots
Lying with his eyes
While his hands are busy
Working overtime
The sole confession of his wife
Which he ate and donated to the
National Trust
I need a fix cause I'm going down
Down to the abyss that I've left up town
I need a fix cause I'm going down
Mother Superior jumped the gun (6 x)
Happiness is a warm gun (4 x)
(Bang, bang, shoot, shoot)
Some guy: Josephine, do you think you are going bald?
Josephine: No. You've asked me that before and the answer was no then
05 Hellbound (02:21)
It lives in folds of red and steamy air
It lives in misery
Hellbound
Hellbound
Hellbound
Hellbound
Hellbound
Hellbound
Oh, oh we're falling
Falling down
Down...
It lives, dispite the knives internal
It lives marry me
Hellbound
Oh, we're falling
Falling down
Down...
It lives in misery
Hellbound
06 When I Was a Painter (03:24)
Inside legs of corduroy I've been
Heard stories of air velveteen
Twenty hours later I fill the room
With bad sex and bad TV
Go, go, go *2
When I was a painter I painted you well
Too bad I have to die
You brought the essentials, perversion appeal
And many lovers at one time
Go, go, go *2
On and on, on, on
Inside legs of corduroy I've been
Heard stories of air velveteen
Twenty hours later I fill the room
With bad sex and bad TV
Go, go, go *2
On and on, on, on
07 Fortunately Gone (01:44)
I wait for you in heaven
On this perfect string of love
And drink your soup of magpies in a
Pottery bowl that looks
As I am now, brown, round and warm
Chime on a rain wet
An ankle, toes or two
Sweetly as it drops upon your head
Just like it did today
Fortunately gone
I wait for you
Chime on a rain wet
An ankle, toes or two
Sweetly as it drops upon your head
Just like it did today
Fortunately gone
I wait for you (chorus *2)
08 Iris (03:29)
Four hours in the pot, one hour out
It grows and I sleep standing up
When Iris sleeps over
What a book she'll write
Oh last night
Oh come on, nobody wants that
Sister, sister, Oh...
We tried hour by hour
Hour by hour
Hour by hour
Four hours to daylight, four hours and then
Pour water on me til I live again
When Iris sleeps over
It'll be alright
All last night
But come on, nobody wants that
Sister, sister, oh...
We tried hour by hour
Hour by hour
Hour by hour
09 Opened (02:28)
Walking on his highways
We leave the land
And float inside the dark, black water
Robin flies again
She flew low over the highways
And I saw the wind
Blowing back her barbie doll hair
Robin flies again
And in a kitchen in Kentucky
She thinks she's Peter Pan
And in the bottom of a concrete basement
Robin flies again
10 Only in 3's (01:56)
Oh...
Back burns are green and off for me and her
He's an ape, he's an ape, he's an angel
Only in 3's, oh...
Only in 3's, oh yeah
Only in 3's, oh...
Oh...
Hay for a bed with her on my head
And you are the king, the same king who will burn me
Only in 3's, oh...
Only in 3's, oh yeah
Only in 3's, oh...
11 Lime House (01:45)
I walk by, I fall down
For warm black tar forms balls
And black tar baby
I'm in a lime house
I'm in a lime house
I'm in a lime house
I'm in a lime house
Fall..., stay for good
Oh live and live and live in the dark baby
Tar baby
I'm in a lime house
I'm in a lime house
I'm in a lime house
I'm in a lime house
I'm in a lime house
I'm in a lime house
I'm in a lime house
I'm in a lime house
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By maryg
"Pod", or how the Pixies should have sounded according to Kim Deal.
Steve Albini claimed that "Pod" was "the only album where he felt he had achieved the best sound and performance from a band."
