It is "Hey."
― Davey D, Saturday, 4 August 2007 09:41 (sixteen years ago) link
HCYM because it's longer than any of the others i love
― mitya, Saturday, 4 August 2007 10:37 (sixteen years ago) link
Hey, Tame, Debaser: Argh can't decide!!!
― MC, Saturday, 4 August 2007 11:31 (sixteen years ago) link
surfer rosa poll i would know my answer in a second
― Surmounter, Saturday, 4 August 2007 12:20 (sixteen years ago) link
And that would be?
― MC, Saturday, 4 August 2007 12:25 (sixteen years ago) link
River Euphrates.
― Surmounter, Saturday, 4 August 2007 12:47 (sixteen years ago) link
I prefer the single version of that :P
I'd have to go with No. 13 Baby or Gouge Away, I suppose.
― Colonel Poo, Saturday, 4 August 2007 14:19 (sixteen years ago) link
I picked "Hey", though "Gouge Away" could belong on that Great Album Closers thread.
I agree with "Silver" being an awful Kim Deal song. And I used to have a framed picture of her hanging in my office.
My smartass answer to this poll would be "A Good Idea" by Sugar.
― Pleasant Plains, Saturday, 4 August 2007 18:07 (sixteen years ago) link
Tame is pretty fucking great, too.
― marmotwolof, Saturday, 4 August 2007 18:17 (sixteen years ago) link
"Silver" – 2:25
No way, it feels about 6 min long. Zzzzzzzzz....
― marmotwolof, Saturday, 4 August 2007 19:34 (sixteen years ago) link
You are all fucking nuts.
― HI DERE, Saturday, 4 August 2007 19:43 (sixteen years ago) link
I like the one that gets quiet ... but then it gets really loud.
― Romeo Jones, Saturday, 4 August 2007 19:44 (sixteen years ago) link
No wait, the one that sounds like Nirvana ... that's the one, man!
― Romeo Jones, Saturday, 4 August 2007 19:45 (sixteen years ago) link
Silver's ok by itself. I just find it about a metric ton less exciting than any of the Black Francis songs. Or Gigantic. Or anything on Pod. Or Safari. Or Last Splash. Or Pacer. I haven't heard Title t/k.
― marmotwolof, Saturday, 4 August 2007 20:05 (sixteen years ago) link
u should
― Surmounter, Saturday, 4 August 2007 22:14 (sixteen years ago) link
it's funny, I have never run across it in a store since right after it first came out. suppose I should send for it.
― marmotwolof, Saturday, 4 August 2007 22:29 (sixteen years ago) link
Doolittle's first side is SO much better than the second. Once La La has played, I shut it off.
― libcrypt, Saturday, 4 August 2007 22:49 (sixteen years ago) link
Have you ever heard "Hey" and "Gouge Away"?
― Johnny Fever, Saturday, 4 August 2007 22:50 (sixteen years ago) link
Yeah, I should give Gouge another chance. But Hey, yawn.
― libcrypt, Saturday, 4 August 2007 22:52 (sixteen years ago) link
I think Silver is great, Dan.
― Melissa W, Saturday, 4 August 2007 22:55 (sixteen years ago) link
aren't you really into radiohead or something
― marmotwolof, Sunday, 5 August 2007 00:57 (sixteen years ago) link
And?
― Melissa W, Sunday, 5 August 2007 01:02 (sixteen years ago) link
and Dan hates Metal Box
― marmotwolof, Sunday, 5 August 2007 01:05 (sixteen years ago) link
...OK?
― Melissa W, Sunday, 5 August 2007 01:06 (sixteen years ago) link
and you both like Silver
― marmotwolof, Sunday, 5 August 2007 01:08 (sixteen years ago) link
uh huh
― Melissa W, Sunday, 5 August 2007 01:09 (sixteen years ago) link
intersting.
― marmotwolof, Sunday, 5 August 2007 01:13 (sixteen years ago) link
indeed
― Melissa W, Sunday, 5 August 2007 01:24 (sixteen years ago) link
"Mr. Grieves" because it's like an epic in two minutes.
― o. nate, Sunday, 5 August 2007 01:41 (sixteen years ago) link
gouge away or hey
in truth, i find a little over half of these tracks a little underwhelming these days.
― Charlie Howard, Sunday, 5 August 2007 05:41 (sixteen years ago) link
Do have anoth-a-pinion?
― christoff, Monday, 6 August 2007 20:26 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.imagingallthepeople.co.uk/prints/monkey_gone_to_heaven.jpg
― bnw, Monday, 6 August 2007 20:31 (sixteen years ago) link
Wow, this is truly one of the hardest decisions I've ever faced, it's like a 10 way tie for me. . .
I'll vote for There Goes My Gun, because of my not being able to get that melody out of my head on that fateful grade 8 field trip to Montreal when I bought Doolittle.
― mehlt, Monday, 6 August 2007 20:39 (sixteen years ago) link
Wow. Looks like you guys are forcing me to vote for I Bleed.
― Jack Burton, Monday, 6 August 2007 21:38 (sixteen years ago) link
i thought I'd be the only one to vote for Gouge Away, glad to see all the love.
I like Hey too. which sounds like the Stones to me
― akm, Monday, 6 August 2007 21:42 (sixteen years ago) link
I Bleed
― Turangalila, Monday, 6 August 2007 21:59 (sixteen years ago) link
"Here Comes Your Man" = great pop song "Hey" = AWESOME "Debaser" = my pick
― Tape Store, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 02:05 (sixteen years ago) link
For sentimental romantic reasons I'm going to vote for "Hey!", although I've a demo/Peel version of it that is a lot better than the one on the album. Has a little more emotion in it somehow.
― Trayce, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 02:34 (sixteen years ago) link
It was pretty much a 4 or 5 way tie, so I just voted for "Hey". I'm sure I'll change my mind in an hour. It's not perfect, but I still love this record.
― j-rock, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 02:54 (sixteen years ago) link
Hey. and then Gauge Away.
― Drooone, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 03:00 (sixteen years ago) link
monkey, because it's the only one of these songs that resonates with me at all anymore
― electricsound, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 03:03 (sixteen years ago) link
Yeah its weird, I loved the Pixies completely, but I just don't listen to them anymore, they're of a time that's faded I think.
― Trayce, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 03:11 (sixteen years ago) link
way-hey-hey-hey-heyve . . .
― The Wayward Johnny B, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 11:54 (sixteen years ago) link
i never really think about this band, but looking at this poll, i realise ive a lot of time for wave of mutilation, gouge away, here comes your man, not sure which i'd pick
― Filey Camp, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 12:05 (sixteen years ago) link
Suprisingly I think "Hey!" is going to win this based on responses thus far. Interesting.
― Trayce, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 12:45 (sixteen years ago) link
I just remembered a sweet thing. I had just been to JB HiFi (Aus chain CD store) and was outside it waiting for a tram. These 2 teenaged indie boys came out, with a bag of cds. One of them pulled out "Surfer Rosa" and showed it to his mate and said "this is an awesome album I've heard". This made me happy. His friend took the CD, looked at it and went "hmm.. hey awesome, she has her tits out on the cover".
― Trayce, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 12:47 (sixteen years ago) link
I felt so old. but in a good way.
― Trayce, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 12:48 (sixteen years ago) link
"I Bleed"
― zeus, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 13:52 (sixteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― ILX System, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:01 (sixteen years ago) link
In another era, Debaser and especially Monkey Gone To Heaven would both have been top ten UK hits
That reminds me - there's a cover of Where Is My Mind? by Yoav that reminded me what a fantastic song THAT is (definitely the best on Surfer Rosa): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDM5uHT_34M
― Christopher Cross, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 00:05 (sixteen years ago) link
from RapGenius.net:
Black Francis told Esquire that “Silver” is, the only composition that I did with Kim on this session. I think we worked on it a couple of times the previous year or something. I don’t know what it means to her and I don’t know what it means to me. The lyrics are all very vague and vaguely folk-sounding. You can almost hear it’s like a faux-folk song. It’s definitely an abstraction. At least that’s my interpretation of it. It was all about creating a mood I think. This is a song me and Kim wrote really fast one night sitting around bored in the studio waiting for whatever to happen with the engineers. There were other lyrics that were supposed to have been written for the actual song but all we’d got left were the original phrases that we came up with so that was that. (Black Francis in the NME, April 1989)
the only composition that I did with Kim on this session. I think we worked on it a couple of times the previous year or something. I don’t know what it means to her and I don’t know what it means to me. The lyrics are all very vague and vaguely folk-sounding. You can almost hear it’s like a faux-folk song. It’s definitely an abstraction. At least that’s my interpretation of it. It was all about creating a mood I think.
This is a song me and Kim wrote really fast one night sitting around bored in the studio waiting for whatever to happen with the engineers. There were other lyrics that were supposed to have been written for the actual song but all we’d got left were the original phrases that we came up with so that was that.
(Black Francis in the NME, April 1989)
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, 26 June 2020 15:44 (three years ago) link
So it's a full music and lyrics collaboration?
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 26 June 2020 15:54 (three years ago) link
That's surprising because "Silver" was also on the Pod Demos. I had always assumed (for some odd reason) that Charles's input regarded elements that were specific to the Doolittle version
― weekly shopper helper (Drugs A. Money), Saturday, 27 June 2020 03:43 (three years ago) link
Kim wrote the lyrics to Gigantic and it was based on the play/movie, Crimes of the Heart. My memory is fuzzy on this, but a married white woman in the south has an affair with a young black man and in the song the narrator sees them meet up.
Fuck it, let me look it up:
Kim Deal’s ex-husband John Murphy sheds some light on this song’s origin in the 2004 oral history Fool the World:
"Charles came up with the riff, but he wasn’t really sure what the lyrics were going to be, so he goes, “Eh, well, Kim, why don’t you take a shot at it? The only thing I know is that I want to call it ‘Gigantic’,” and she says, “Fine.” So she comes home with it and she’s playing it on the guitar and I said, “Gigantic, okay, maybe it’s about a big mall.” She goes, “Okay, let’s try that for a while,” and I’m like, “The mall, the mall, let’s have a ball.” So I wrote that. It changed to “Hey, Paul”, because it had to rhyme. And then, a couple of days later she had fixated on this Sissy Spacek movie Crimes of the Heart about this farmworker, I think he’s a black guy, and Sissy Spacek and this farmworker get together – so that’s what it’s about. An illicit love affair."
So there are some things to unpack here. His "teeth are white as snow." I assume in contrast to his skin color. And the word "gigantic" in the context of the song?
― Cow_Art, Saturday, 27 June 2020 04:41 (three years ago) link
I tried reading the "Doolittle" 33 1/3 and ... couldn't. Boring subjects, writer not quite up to making something interesting out of them. Which is part of the band's appeal, in a weird way.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 27 June 2020 22:00 (three years ago) link
Yeah, after I learned the setting for the song, I no longer loved it in the way I once did (which I really did, because there are almost no songs that include the name Paul).
― Johnny Fever, Saturday, 27 June 2020 23:10 (three years ago) link
Palace Brothers - O Paul
― epistantophus, Saturday, 4 July 2020 23:32 (three years ago) link
Gigantic is cancelled
― PaulTMA, Sunday, 5 July 2020 01:03 (three years ago) link
xxp Big Thief - Paul
― Pat McGroin (morrisp), Sunday, 5 July 2020 01:08 (three years ago) link
a big big pud
― shout-out to his family (DJP), Sunday, 5 July 2020 01:51 (three years ago) link
uriah hit the crapperthe crapper
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 22:31 (two years ago) link