Certain Songs

Certain Songs #1573: Pixies – “Wave of Mutilation”

June 30, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Doolittle
Year: 1989

. . .

Had the Pixies decided to title their second album More Songs About Water and Death, I’m guessing that nobody would have even batted an eye, as many of their songs are about one or the other, and quite usually both. Or at least many of their songs that I truly loved, like “Wave of Mutilation,” a song so key to the Pixies legend that they recorded two versions of it.

One of the versions was slow and dreamy and they called it the “U.K. Surf” version, and while it was relegated to a b-side, they often pulled it out for concerts. But of course, I preferred the version that ended up on More Songs About Water and Death, because it was faster and noisier while still retaining both its essential prettiness and essential weirdness.

Certain Songs #1572: Pixies – “Debaser”

June 27, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Doolittle
Year: 1989

. . .

I think it was in a film class in the mid-1980s at Fresno State that I first saw Luis Buñuel & Salvador Dali’s experimental short film, Un Chien Andalou. And while I was suitably and properly grossed out by the eyeball-slicing scene, it never even struck me to write a song about the whole experience.

Not so Black Francis, who wrote the rip-roaring opener of the Pixies 1989 Doolittle LP, “Debaser,” around it.

Certain Songs #1571: Pixies – “Where Is My Mind?”

June 26, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Surfer Rosa
Year: 1988

If you only know one Pixies song, this is probably the song. But then again, why would you only know one Pixies song? What’s the fun in that?

While it was never released as a single — Kim Deal’s “Gigantic” was the only song from Surfer Rosa that was singlized — “Where Is My Mind?” was the song that best showed off the big, dry sound that Steve Albini got for them, especially Dennis Lovering’s snare drum, which sounded like the Lord’s thunder with every single snare whack of the Neil Young drumbeat that drove the song.

Certain Songs #1570: Pixies – “Holiday Song”

June 25, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Come On Pilgrim EP
Year: 1987

. . .

And now we come to the strange case of the Pixies.

Between the time they released their first EP in 1987 to the time they released their final album in 1991, they’d built up almost an infinite amount of goodwill in the alt-rock community, ironically breaking up just prior to the whole fucking underground exploding into the light of the post-Nirvana world, which as a long-term career move, might have been the best thing they could have done, because in the decade between the acrimonious breakup and the economically-driven reunion a dozen years later, they became legends.

Certain Songs #1569: Pistol Annies – “Got My Name Changed Back”

June 24, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Interstate Gospel
Year: 2018

. . .

While country music is perhaps most famous for its cheatin’ songs, it also has a pretty good slew of divorce songs — which naturally follows, if you think about it — and in 2018, the Pistol Annies contributed a great one to the canon, the Miranda Lambert-penned “Got My Name Changed Back.”

It was a bit of a surprise: after their second album, 2013’s Annie Up, they took a hiatus, as both Ashley Monroe & Angeleena Presley used their higher profile to boost their careers — all five of the albums they released in that period are really good — while Lambert dealt with the high-profile end of her marriage with Blake Shelton in 2015 and released a fine double-album, The Weight of These Wings, though it didn’t really address the end of her marriage as directly as “Got My Name Changed Back,” a song which they debuted at their comeback show and became the highlight of their third album, 2018’s Interstate Gospel.

Certain Songs #1568: Pistol Annies – “Takin’ Pills”

June 23, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Hell on Heels
Year: 2011

. . .

In the past decade or so, Miranda Lambert — perhaps the greatest mainstream country music star this century has produced (and that “perhaps” is just a courtesy) — has supplemented her solo albums with three good-time records as part of the Pistol Annies. Kinda like when Rod Stewart joined the Faces.

And while Lambert — like Stewart before her — is obviously the draw, she ain’t the only reason to appreciate in the Pistol Annies, as the other two — Ashley Monroe and Angeelena Presley — have also done high-quality work, and across all of the Pistol Annie albums, the songwriting duties are evenly split, and usually collaborations, to boot.

Certain Songs #1567: Pink Floyd – “Comfortably Numb”

June 22, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Wall
Year: 1979

. . .

Hi, I’m Jim and I have a confession to make. I’m a big fan of Pink Floyd and I don’t like The Wall.

Oh sure, when it came out, I bought it just like everybody else, and was jealous that Larry got to go see the tour and enjoyed a lot of the songs on the radio. And I also appreciated the fact that it was comprised of a bunch of short songs instead of epics.

But. I. Just. Didn’t. Get. It.

Certain Songs #1566: Pink Floyd – “Sheep”

June 21, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Animals
Year: 1977

. . .

Obviously, things worked out in the end, but in the same universe where “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” took up a whole album side, the other side consisted of the other two songs they initially wrote at the same time in early 1974, “You’ve Gotta Be Crazy” and “Raving and Drooling.”

But, of course, it wasn’t to be, so instead those songs fueled the two concept albums that followed The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and Animals. (In case you forgot.)

Certain Songs #1565: Pink Floyd – “Dogs”

June 20, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Animals
Year: 1977

. . .

It’s one of my favorite jokes in TV history — an admittedly throwaway gag on one of the most beloved sitcom episodes in history — but for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t even exist anymore.

Of course, I’m talking about the infamous WKRP in Cincinnati “Turkeys Away” episode, an episode that cemented the still-new sitcom as one of my favorites, even though the joke I’m referring to was more of a piece of character-building than it was part of the master plot.

Certain Songs #1564: Pink Floyd – “Wish You Were Here”

June 19, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Wish You Were Here
Year: 1975

It was Live 8 when I realized it.

Somehow Ser Bob Geldof had talked Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Mason into to playing together for the first time in over two decades — shaking off or at least ignoring the humongous well of bad feelings that had accumulated in all of that time. It kinda felt like a miracle watching them. So after the requisite pair of songs from The Dark Side of The Moon, backup guitarist Tim Renwick starts playing the tinny guitar from the opening of “Wish You Were Here” — the conceit on the album being that someone is listening to “Have a Cigar” on the radio, wants to hear something else and while scanning the dial, lands upon “Wish You Were Here” (tough luck Pink Floyd Haters) — and Roger Waters addresses the crowd, because even he is caught up in the weirdness.

It’s pretty short, of course, but he talks about how much emotion playing with the other guys is raising inside of him, and dedicates “Wish You Were Here” to “Everyone who’s not here. Particularly, of course, for Syd.” Of course.