Frank Black-O-Rama! #3: DOOLITTLE

Pixies
Doolittle
1989, 4AD/Elektra

I can’t listen to Doolittle anymore. I don’t hate it, but I’m finished with it.

There was a time when I loved it. There was a time when it was everything to me. It was my first Pixies album and right away, I thought that it was as good as music got. After my very first listen, I had a new favorite band (“Sorry, Beatles, you’re now #2”). No music had ever punched me in the face like that before. No music had ever screamed at me like that before. It was raw blunt force trauma with catchy hooks. The songs were jagged and jittery. They were quick little things that sliced through space and time like razors. And they were all so good and instantly infectious, not to mention darkly funny. They were stuck in my head all day, a constant source of energy and inspiration.

And now I’m done with it. Have been for at least fifteen years. I think I used it all up.

I was 19 and a total dork in 1995 when I bought Doolittle at a used CD store and Black Francis was 23 when he made it. A whole lot of life was waiting to happen to both of us. Over time, I think both he and I would relate less and less to this album’s shrieking young smartass, however brilliant he was, and move on to other things.

Here’s where my head is at in 2020: All of the Frank Black and the Catholics albums still sound great to me, even if they’re far less acclaimed than the early Pixies records. I bought them all when they came out (1998 to 2003) and twenty years later, they still get regular play around here. They’re not the major rock ‘n’ roll lightning bolt that Pixies were, but they didn’t have to be. I never asked for that. What those records–and Frank Black’s other later records, including the neo-Pixies albums–bring is a seasoned master’s craft and they only sound better to me as I get older. I will be listening to them for the rest of my life.

Doolittle, by contrast, sits frozen in time for me. The original Pixies sound like a band made to be short-lived. They burn bright, make their noise and then flame out before their schtick gets old. And when they’re gone, they’re gone.

As a listener, I did the same, in a way. I played the Pixies so much that after a few years, I never needed them again. I was burning them out.

I probably seem negative, but I swear that I’m here to praise Doolittle. I don’t need it in my life anymore, but it remains a piece of breakneck rock ‘n’ roll full of furious inspiration. Even I can still hear that. Here, Black Francis came to a truce with the universe and was coming up with some of the best rock songs out there. Even the B-sides from this time are great. While his later work ages better for me, Doolittle is easily Francis’s ready-to-be-famous peak. The band sound happy and focused and energized. They sound like the Next Big Thing–and, even better, they deserved it.

The Pixies had me at the first song, “Debaser”. As a teenage classic movie nerd, I got the reference right away. I hadn’t yet seen Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali’s landmark 1929 short, Un Chien Andalou. It wasn’t exactly available at Blockbuster. At the time, it was most commonly seen in college film classes (no Youtube uploads back then, kids) and it was a frequent reference in the film history books I read. I wanted to see it. Now here was a song about it. The Pixies were talking about something that was part of my weird little world and it just felt… right.

“Debaser” is a happy song. In it, Black Francis simply recommends a movie to you and that about sums it up. Yep, the song is a movie review, but one from a shouting maniac with killer pop instincts.

It sets the tone for what follows.

Let’s pick ’em off one by one.

This might be my last time ever playing Doolittle, so we’re gonna savor every track. We’re gonna kiss it goodbye.

The second song, “Tame”. Black Francis saw a girl who had dolled herself up in make-up and hair product and high fashion, but he didn’t think she looked all that great for the effort–kinda plastic, maybe; she was probably prettier without all that stuff–and then wrote a mean song about it. It’s one of the band’s most aggressive screamers. Somebody’s gotten bruised in the mosh pit during this one.

“Wave of Mutilation”. One of the album’s stand-out catchy choruses, but the song was just as blissful when they slowed it down to a whisper for the “UK Surf” version on a B-side. I think it’s about de-evolution, but going back even further than Devo. The person in this song wants to get in touch with their fish ancestors.

“I Bleed”. Terrific nonsense. What’s it about? Probably nothing. It’s about the cool vocal interplay between Francis and Kim Deal. They sound like Dracula and his daughter.

“Here Comes Your Man”. The band’s most undeniable shoulda-been-a-hit. They made a video and a single for it. There were a few “alternative” bands who broke mega-mainstream US rock radio back then. Love & Rockets. The Cure. The B-52’s. REM. The Pixies belonged in there, too. We should all be as tired today of “Here Comes Your Man” as we are of “Love Shack”. Interestingly, this is one of the oldest songs here. Francis wrote it when he was teenager. The Pixies recorded it for their first demo tape, but everyone thought it sounded too commercial for the band’s dangerous vibe. Their new producer Gil Norton liked it though and got them to give it another try. I think it fits in perfectly. It’s the fifth song on the album and it makes us feel like this band can do anything.

“Dead”. Black Francis has always been fond of Biblical imagery and references. I think he likes the drama. This is the unsavory story of David and Bathsheba as related via a song that stings hard. It’s the kind of weird, mean rocker that we need after the previous song’s candy pop.

“Monkey Gone to Heaven”. The album’s other single. It’s dreamy little thing spiffed out with a small string section and more Biblical touches. It’s an apocalypse song, but one brought about by man-made pollution and a disappearing ozone layer. It’s an ugly scenario told in the prettiest way.

“Mr. Grieves”. There’s something very Kurt Weill about this one. It hints at that smokey Weimar German cabaret vibe. Slip it into The Threepenny Opera and it would sit pretty. It even ends like a showtune. One of my favorites. I think it’s a whimsical look at death.

“Crackity Jones”. Do you like the screamy songs? Here you go. Francis lets rip so fiercely in this one that he almost stops sounding human and comes off more like a terrifying feral animal. The Spanish lyrics are back, as is that border town vibe of Come on Pilgrim. Francis has explained before that the lyrics are inspired by his crazy roommate back when he lived in Puerto Rico. Where’s the real life Crackity Jones now?

“La La Love You”. From the fast and violent to the light and fluffy. And intentionally campy. It’s the Pixies idea of a love song, delivered with a smirk. It’s also delivered by drummer David Lovering on lead vocals, who has a pretty smooth croon on him. It’s nobody’s favorite song–it sounds like an “intermission”–but it’s a vital part of this album’s personality. Incidentally, the instrumental track was used in a few romantic-comedy movie trailers in the 90s.

“No. 13 Baby”. Now, things get evil again. At almost four minutes, it’s the album’s longest song and that’s fine. You don’t let go of this kind of swagger too quickly.

“There Goes My Gun”. Hey, sometimes you gotta shoot your gun and that’s all there is to say about it. There’s a very minimal sketch of a story in between the also-minimal chorus. Fill it in any way you want. I mostly enjoy the sunny vocal harmony between Francis and Kim Deal in the crescendos. It sounds happy, but in a wicked way. I thought this song was very funny when I first heard it and I still think so.

“Hey”. The hour is late and the body is weary, but the soul is still alive and has so much to say. The lyrics are full of devils and whores and sex and pain. Somewhere in there is a Mary that may or may not be Mary Magdelene. It’s slow, but not gentle. Joey Santiago’s lead guitar gives it sharp edges. The guitar tells half of the sad story. There’s a heart behind all of this insanity.

“Silver”. Now we’re asleep and having uneasy dreams. For a long time, I thought this song was a tall glass of pure filler. Just a little dirge to pad things out. Now, I love it. It sounds like an old Sons of the Pioneers ballad slowed down to the extreme, slowed down so much that the tumbling tumbleweeds become something else. Something sinister. Something haunting and mysterious. It’s one of Kim Deal’s two Pixies co-writing credits (the other is “Gigantic”).

“Gouge Away”. For the grand finale, Black Francis smacks us in the face with the Old Testament again. It’s the story of Samson and Delilah as told in a rocker that’s as fearsome as anything else here. Doolittle ends with the house on fire.

They say that show business is all about entrances and exits. Doolittle might be the most beloved Pixies album because it’s the one that most lives up to that. It opens big and closes big and splatters blood all over the walls in between. “Debaser” and “Gouge Away” are also neat little summaries of the band’s concerns at time. The first covers surrealism, the last covers The Bible. Both scream and wield powerful hooks. Both are tight and tidy productions that also somehow sound maniacal at the same time. They sound like they were made by the most brilliant inmates at the insane asylum.

They also sounded like a band who were a part of no scene.

4AD were the perfect label for them. The Pixies were an American band who sometimes–at this stage, at least–sounded Mexican. Meanwhile, their album presentations were British to the max. It was that old Hipgnosis aesthetic, from (now recently deceased) graphic design great Vaughan Oliver and photographer Simon Larbalestier, in which the album art is an elaborate work all by itself. Larbalestier’s inner sleeve photographs are often clever responses to the songs. They support the music. They get the music. They help create a world around the music, a weird world drained of color and full of rust and dirt and hair and shadows.

The aesthetic reminds me a lot of David Lynch at the time of Eraserhead and The Elephant Man, two black-and-white films that fetishize decay in similar ways and are set in worlds that are removed from the present world. (The Pixies had been covering “In Heaven” from Eraserhead on stage from the start so they were clearly down with that effect.)

For this revisit, I bought the 25th anniversary triple-CD set that’s as good an expansion as anyone could want, if you’re okay with its artwork being oddly less impressive than the original release. It’s a faded memory of Oliver and Larbalestier’s original work, reshuffled, brightened-up and condensed (also, we somehow lost the lyric booklet along the way).

The original album gets its own disc, which is wise. The second CD collects the roaring Peel Sessions from this time and the B-sides, all of which are essential. The best of the batch is the pounding “Into the White”, sung by Kim Deal and written by Black Francis. It, along with “Manta Ray”, point toward the more cosmic interests that would occupy Francis on the group’s next album, Bossanova. “Into the White” tells of a far-out trip into space while “Manta Ray” is the story of a UFO sighting, which Francis relates with the same manic joy that he told us about Un Chien Andalou.

The hushed and sumptuous “UK Surf” version of “Wave of Mutilation” wouldn’t have fit on the album, but I think I like it more. It’s gorgeous. After the Pixies broke up and Black Francis became Frank Black, he stopped playing Pixies songs live for about five years. In 1998, he lightened up on the matter and added two of his oldies to the repertoire of his then-new band, The Catholics. Those songs were “The Holiday Song” and “Wave of Mutilation”, UK Surf-style. Nice and slow, easing into a reappreciation of his past.

“Dancing the Manta Ray” is one of those great rock ‘n’ roll throwaways. It sounds like it was written in two minutes and it’s glorious. It’s the Pixies’ demented take on those old 60s dance craze songs. You’ve got “The Twist” (by Chubby Checker), you’ve got “The New Continental” (by The Dovells), you’ve got “The Locomotion” (by Little Eva), you’ve got others too numerous to mention. And now you’ve got “The Manta Ray” (by the Pixies). It’s a dance song, it’s a UFO song, it’s one of my favorite B-sides by anybody. Never mind that it doesn’t actually describe any steps. It trusts that you’ll know what to do with its sexy slink. It’s a song that still shows up in the Pixies live set every now and then and Frank Black and The Catholics also played it, so clearly the man himself digs it, too.

“Weird at My School” and “Bailey’s Walk” are the lesser ones of the batch, but they’re still interesting. If you like Francis’s psycho killer vibes, they’re two more stiff shots of it.

The third CD brings full-band demos of the whole album and it’s interesting to hear how complete they are. There are little differences. “Debaser” had an oddly quiet chorus at this early stage. “Here Comes Your Man” wasn’t totally smoothed-out yet, despite being the oldest song in the batch. “Wave of Mutilation”, at one point, had completely different verses. For the most part though, the vision was intact. They were ready to go. The Pixies knew something that the rest of the world didn’t.

When I finally discovered the Pixies for myself, I felt like I was let in on a secret. Right away, I wanted to be let in on more secrets. What else great is out there that I don’t know about?

Doolittle came out on April 17, 1989. On that day, I was 12. I was in sixth grade. I loved comic books. I was really looking forward to the upcoming Batman movie. I wasn’t a giant music fan, but I bought the odd cassette here and there. My favorite music was The Monkees and “Weird” Al Yankovic. How many times back then did I stroll right past Doolittle at Sound Warehouse or at the mall, not even noticing it, with no idea that it would change my life about six years later?

Doolittle is the kind of album that can change your life when you hear it at the right age. It changed mine back in ’95 and I’ll never forget that. I’ll never forget the instant rush that went through my entire body the first time that I heard it. It’s the album that I blame for making me such a music fanatic in my 20s. I hit the music bins hard after this looking for THAT feeling again.

That’s the legacy of Doolittle in my life. It put me on a path. It got the water in my brain to percolate a little differently than before. Even if I never listen to it again, I will always give it credit for that.

Goodbye, Doolittle. You and I are done, but I hope that young people continue to discover you for generations to come. I hope that you keep inspiring budding music fans to dig deeper.

Maybe some of them might even dig into Frank Black’s later work, after the Pixies crashed and burned.

More on that, in time….