PIXIES Poll: The best track on Doolittle

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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

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?

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

one year passes...

uriah hit the crapper
the crapper

STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 22:31 (two years ago) link


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