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The Pixies: "U-Mass"
Yes, it’s Day 5 of Reselect’s special Pixies Week, and of course, as we all know, all good things must come to an end. Much like the Pixies recording together in the studio ended after Trompe Le Monde, the album whose release 20 years ago inspired this celebration. And it’s time to come back to that album to wrap things up.
Now as you Reselect regulars know, Friday has typically been “Cover Friday,” and I could have opted to work that into Pixies Week by selecting “Head On,” the cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain song that the Pixies included on Trompe le Monde. However, it’s not really among my favorite songs on the album, and when it comes down to it, that’s what Reselect is all about: great songs. So, after some deliberation, I have to go with “U-Mass,” one of the most garage-rocking songs the Pixies ever did and probably the song that jumped out at me most the first time I listened to the album all the way through.
“U-Mass” is written about the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, which is where Black Francis and Joey Santiago met and started planning the band. (Apparently, they met while living next to each other in a suite; weird how fate works, isn’t it? How little things like the placement of students in a dorm can end up making such an impact on, say, the course of music history?) It doesn’t come off as the most complimentary song about UMass — essentially it’s a sarcastic comment on how “educational” many colleges claim to be but maybe aren’t so much in reality. My personal take on this, having spent many years living in Massachusetts and having many friends and family who attended UMass-Amherst (including my wife), is that while it certainly has a bit of a reputation as a party school, it’s also quite a good school. So I think that while the song calls out UMass specifically, it’s not really their only target — the song is targeting certain types of students as much as the school itself.
So why was this song with the rock-crunching guitar riff not all over the radio when it came out? Well, I’ll hazard a guess: the one line of the lyrics that isn’t fit for consumption by the youngsters. That would be the “Oh kiss me ____” lines, of course (no need for me to fill in the blanks, just listen to the song). If you’re not really paying attention, you might not notice those lyrics, but if you are... well, you would. And sure, they could have blanked those parts out for the radio, but maybe the Pixies just didn’t want to compromise the song. Who knows. It’s just a f&%king great song.
Original post date: October 7, 2011