Certain Songs #2356: Sonic Youth – “Disappearer”

Album: Goo
Year: 1990

. . .

One thing I think I always knew, but just now came to the forefront of my consciousness is just how evocative many of the song titles on Goo were. I mean, “Mary-Christ,” “Mote,” “Cinderella’s Big Score” and “Titanium Expose” are all A+ song titles, evoking images and sounds even before you actually hear the song.

As is “Disappearer,” which — compared to the previous three songs from Goo I’ve written about — seems like it might be a deep cut, but was actually the second single from Goo. And while I always thought that “Disappearer” was about being kidnapped by UFOs from the perspective of the UFOs, that was because I really didn’t listen to Thurston Moore’s lyrics, which were kinda buried in the mix,
Quite literally, the only words I knew were these:

You’ve been away too long
It’s been way too long
An eastern star is on
A disappearer

Which seemed to help out my theory. As did the rave-up in the middle, full of spacey guitars that made — to me — proper alien spaceship noises.

Wrong!! Apparently “Disappearer” is about how signs, both literal and man-made, fuck with your perspectives, which was reinforced by the video made by Todd Haynes.

But, of course, I never saw the video made by Todd Haynes until much much later, when I bought a Sonic Youth video collection on DVD and was surprised that there was a video for “Disappearer” in the first place. And in fact, it turns out that the made videos for nearly the whole album, a thing that never happened again, of course. As the second single from Goo, and a pretty catchy song, as well, you might have expected that it would have built on the momentum of “Kool Thing,” and you would be dead wrong.

“Disappearer”

“Disappearer” Official Music Video

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