I don't know what wondrous series of events led to Black Francis (vocals, guitar), Joey Santiago (guitar), Kim Deal (bass, vocals) and David Lovering (drums) forming one of the most influential bands of the late '80s, whose influence is still being felt today whether or not you know it. I mean, I know of their origins and how they came together, but the fact of this band's being seems more like a destined event to prove that god has a sick sense of humor than it does something that happened by chance. In friggin' BOSTON of all places (I can say that, seeing as I grew up in New Hampshire, and had many a doctor's visit in the illustrious city before the Big Dig ruined the commute).

Here's a little run down of the Pixies' previous two offerings. The Come on Pilgrim E.P. featured songs on Biblical incest, reincarnation, murder and masturbation, to name a few themes. The Steve Albini produced debut Surfer Rosa branched out to include songs of being stranded on the Gaza strip, making love to a black man with a large member, being molested in a parking lot, enjoying a broken face, rotting in jail and writing letters wishing a lover would wipe blood onto her dress, and a little ditty to "a superhero named Tony."

That's without mentioning the strange little Spanglish asides, memories of Puerto Rico as a run-down hovel and the sadness felt when seeing a fish underwater that permeated the record. Also not mentioning the combination of blood, come, and other stains marking every song, bringing celebrations of waste to an artform of musical debauchery and deformity.

So yeah, the Pixies are just a bit off-kilter. Wouldn't you agree? If you don't, you're stupid and I hate you.*

If I remember correctly, the album Doolittle was originally supposed to be titled W-h-o-r-e. Luckily, once Vaughan Oliver (the artist for 4AD in those days) was done designing the cover and filling the pages with pretty images of decay in the form of teeth inside iron bells, upside-down crabs, washed away heels and lots of dust-covered chains, the band came to the title of Doolittle. Pretty random, wouldn't you say? I guess you could say they're speaking to the monkey on the cover, as detailed in the song Monkey Gone to Heaven? Who knows.

We open with Debaser. A pretty little tune, don't you think? Nice overlay of guitars and bass, nothing too insane. Quite hummable. Oh, wait, did they just say "slicing up eyeballs?" Hmm... Don't know about that. "Wanna grow up to be, be a debaser." A song about the surrealist film Un Chien Andalou (which Black Francis changes to "andalusia" because it sounds more Spanglish), fixating on the moment early on when a woman's eye is cut open with a knife. It's also debasing in the way that it takes a perfect little tune and overlays ugliness on top -- can you get more influential than that? (ask Nirvana) Quite simply, a classic.

Tame is violent, hardcore sex. Without the love to clutter things up with feeling, I suppose. Black Francis sounds possessed, unhinged, and ready to snap. At one point in the song, Kim Deal joins in to overlay breathy exhalations on top of Black's, which is pretty much an auditory sex session set to music. I love this loping, creeping, explosive mess of a track. And you should, too.

The non-single version of Wave of Mutilation appears next. A quiet, pensive melody done acoustically on the single (and available on the Complete B-Sides import collection, or the movie Pump Up the Volume) is done with fire here, lots of slashing guitars and shredded bass. It's also quietly heartbreaking, talking about ostracism in a coded way, by wishing to drive your car into the sea. Proof that the Pixies are more than just out to shock, but to provoke a response -- an emotional one.

I Bleed is an atonal Francis and Deal fest. Another coded song about love, and its heartbreak. Contains the sad coda: "there's a place/in the buried west/in a cave/with a house in it/in the clay/the holes of hands/you can place/a hand in hand"

Here Comes Your Man coasts in on possibly the most recognized alternative bassline in history. A song so sweet and simple and poppy, it betrays the fact that it's cataloguing the sad life of a trainyard bum. A song that is uplifted by its contradictions, and one of the standouts.

Dead is a staccato, angry track filled with weird guitar shrieks and swoops. A retelling of the tale of Bathsheba and Uriah. In the Bible, Bathsheba is viewed naked by King David while she is bathing. He sends for her. They have sex. Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, is a loyal soldier to the king. The king takes Bathsheba as his wife, after sending Uriah to deliver a letter stating that Uriah should fight in the frontlines of a siege, where he dies. The song ends with the creepy "Uriah hit the crapper, the crapper. DEAD!"

Monkey Gone to Heaven is, aside from being bizarrely affecting, an environmental message song done cryptically. It talks of an "underwater guy who controlled the sea" being killed by "10 million pounds of sludge from New York and New Jersey." Later on, Francis talks of ozone holes, and of man's inability to transcend via the showstopping "If man is 5, then the devil is 6. If the devil is 6, then god is 7." (it builds slowly) The chorus of "This monkey's gone to heaven" was actually a place-filler to be changed later, but, in true Pixies fashion, they decided to keep it. One of the softest tracks on this CD, and proof positive of this band's range and depth of material.

Mr. Grieves is the song where "Doolittle" finally got its title from, from the line "pray for a man in the middle/one that talks like doolittle." A song that starts with Francis parading "Hope everything is all right" before wondering if the listener has an opinion. Musical and strange, but I guess my mind is strangely more in-tune with the following track.

Which is Crackity Jones, in which Black Francis pitter-patters hyper words about an insane roommate he had in Puerto Rico where he studied for a semester. His voice breaks almost as often as the music does.

La La Love You is one of the few songs where David Lovering gets a chance at vocal duties. His voice sounds both sweet and defamed, a little bit croony, a little bit dirty-old-man. Of course, having the song hitched up to lyrics like "all I'm saying pretty baby/la la love you don't mean maybe" doesn't help his cause. A song that always makes me laugh, for the sarcastic sliding whistles and the sinister subtext of what "love" usually is.

Number 13 baby is done in Black Francis' attempt at a falsetto (when he isn't screaming his guts out), a tone poem to a girl he loves. Her best feature? She has a "tattooed tit with the number 13."

This creepy lullaby is followed by There Goes My Gun, which I remember AMG calling "blankly psychotic." Yes, it is, but it's even moreso than that phrase will let on, because this song is easy to memorize and sing along to. It's almost funny too, the way Deal sings "There goes my gun" as though it's not her fault that the gun went off. I love it.

If you ask me, Hey is one of the most beautiful and needing songs in the Pixies' catalogue. It almost sounds like a country sunset, and the live version off of Death to the Pixies turns it into a campfire singalong. An honest love song, once Francis is tired "of the w-h-o-r-e-s in my bed." He later bemoans that "this is the sound that a mother makes when her baby breaks" and sings sweetly about being trapped in chains. The closest thing to tears for the Pixies.

Silver evokes the ghostly western feel of Keith Richards singing You Got the Silver off of Let It Bleed. (What, you don't have Let It Bleed? I don't know you) Sad, beautiful -- the perfect comedown to a scarred album.

We end with Gouge Away, another subtle melody, but one that turns rabid at the chorus, with Deal evicting smoky "la la las" from her person and Francis talking about marijuana, holy fingers, and spooning his eyes. Self-destruction and hanging low has never been written about so well.

Let it bleed, indeed.








* Jhonen Vasquez aside. See review on "Everything Can Be Beaten" for more.

Recommended: Yes