In April 1989, Pixies pulled their second album Doolittle right from their back pocket and offered it up to the world. The music displayed a depraved fascination, the intersection of lust and danger creating an album of pure magnetic imagery. The rivers which flowed from this album ran thick with filth, bleeding something shadowy and new onto the alternative- rock scene of the late eighties. Alice Beard explores.
Within days of its release, Doolittle had cemented itself as something entirely distinct and uncontained. It’s unsurprising that within a week the album had reached No. 8 in the UK charts. This was something else in comparison to its predecessors. By April 1989 we had already witnessed the release of Pixies’ debut Surfer Rosa, along with the likes of Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation, Fugazi’s 13 Songs and even Galaxie 500’s Today and On Fire. The American alternative scene was practically at boiling point, yet this album still managed to create an unstoppable rift of monumental scale. The album is soft and pleasant in the most perverse way. The contents are calamitous, its lustful whisperings met by reflections of the most violent nature- it’s something of pure horror and dread, yet it still manages to maintain a saccharine sweetness which turned everything else at the time completely on its head.
Doolittle could not have begun in any other way than with Debaser. It opens with a classic Kim Deal bassline, thudding through with mounting weight and purpose. Soon after comes the clanging of guitar and drums, and within twenty seconds the track has already crafted a raging sonic philosophy. Charles Thompson, or ‘Black Francis’, jumps from left to right with his manic lyricism. ‘Got me a movie, I want you to know/ Slicing up eyeballs, I want you to know’. The snarls are rabid and out of control. It’s as chilling as it is silly. Francis took to Surrealism to express his most insurgent voicings on violence, tapping into an almost childlike glee at the exhibition of blood and gore. He often borrowed influence from the films of Luis Buñuel and David Lynch. ‘I am un chien andalusia’ Francis shrieks from the shadows of this track, a reference to Buñuel and Salvador Dali’s 1928 film Un Chien Andalou. This was a film in which a scene of a man drawing a razor across the eye of his female companion prodded at audiences with its vulgarity. The imagery was as artistic as it was freakish and depraved. This track and in fact the rest of the album prove equally as obscene.
The album screeches into its second track Tame with no time to breathe. It’s moments like this on the album, along with No 13 Baby and Dead, which leave a scorching sense of dismay and confusion burning straight through the centre. The abrupt switch between hot and cold marks an undesirable lewdness in the composition. There is a throbbing persistence of something mean. Something so coarse and filthy it trickles into increasingly risqué territories.
Third track Wave of Mutilation momentarily puts the breaks on with its sound. It floats the soundwaves into a sort of dreamy pleasureland. In a way it holds drama, tales of kissing mermaids and riding the El Niño resulting in the fumbling of an uneasy calmness into the otherwise feelings of distress. There is a scratching sensation brought forth within this track. Francis proves an intense craft to his songwriting with his ability to provoke such curiosity and confusion.
Pixies emerged with their most accessible hit when they trod onwards with Here Comes Your Man. This smooth-talking track sails into surf rock with its jangly guitar riffs and pondering narration. The chord progression is sugary and juvenile and has a quality almost reminiscent of R.E.M’s earlier days. It’s lush and easy going, a complete turnaround from the other smacks in the face we receive from the remainder of the album- that is until you take a deeper inspection. Themes of natural destruction and uncontrollable loss litter the contents of this track. Mind you, who would take a deeper look into the lyrics after being provided such a jovial lullaby to knock your head back to. The contrast is almost comical, once again proving how deeply Francis preferred to bury his messages into obscurity.
"Francis’ wails are corrosive and compelling.  It all feels like a manic debasement of religious faith and humanity"
Selected as the first single for Doolittle, Monkey Gone to Heaven is a slick commercial move, but with no less promise. Those Lou Reed-y vocals lure you into something so suave and instantly gratifying. Rumbling guitars soon become paired with rich gushes of warm cello strings, a softness and beauty offsetting the potent fury which is pocketed elsewhere in the song. The track is deceptive and weighty in its subject matter, raising troubling questions about the environment along with morality itself. The twist of the final section is ferocious and wired: ‘If man is five/ Then the devil is six/ And if the devil is six/ Then God is seven’. Francis’ wails are corrosive and compelling.  It all feels like a manic debasement of religious faith and humanity.
The story gets all the more grim from here, Mr Grieves a haunting tale of grief and destruction. The track swings between decidedly dark and merciless tones. Just as unpredictable is La La Love You. It feels naïve, in a charming, cutesy sort of way. Hippity- hopping drumbeats become doused in rich blankety layers courtesy of guitar and bass, then it all gets topped off with some tongue in cheek foxy whistles. The crudest joke of it all is that there’s no love in the song at all, Francis merely wrote it as a dig at those mushy, melty love songs of the fifties. The essence of the track is repetitive and banal with no real substance to the content of the lyrics either, but that’s exactly what Francis was aiming for- a sly mockery at the state of popular music. Despite the smug, sneering nature of the track its still remained a favourite amongst fans for exactly the reason it was attempting to take digs at.
Tucked neatly towards the end of the album comes There Goes My Gun. At under two minutes long, this track is surprisingly minimalist at first glance. The structure is uncomplicated and lyrics not too obscure and it manages to pull together a vivid and enigmatic story. Three largely similar verses expand into nightmare. It’s difficult to decipher the danger through the escalating verses, but the ambiguity makes it all the more frightening.
Gouge Away closes off this album as something sleek and cynical. In this piece all the big themes of the album come crashing down full force- sex, defiance, death and God colliding into one great collapse into the abyss. Deal’s thick bass and the steely, processed percussion converge into a biting gothic dance groove that crawls and tears beneath the skin, this eerie biblical retelling becoming more and more provocative as it progresses.
Doolittle was undoubtedly an abrasive offering, but it was made to be enjoyed, and enjoyed it has been. The album is balanced effortlessly with light glistening tracks set against even more tracks of angst and dense claustrophobia. Francis proves himself as a master of his craft, raising up his vision and esoteric wit to produce a hair- raising warning for vengeance which has trickled its influence down to all who followed since its inception. With this album, Pixies echoed out something vital, filling a void in the music industry with something of an unparalleled calibre.   Â
Alice Beard
Edited by Alice Beard