Pixies - I’ve Been Tired

I am going to make an argument by annotation (reductio ad talk lotsum) for the fact that “I’ve Been Tired” is the best song of ever. After this very sentence I will not even mention how the music composition is a perfectly sinuous, banger-ish, Form of Pixies sort of Platonic piece of super-perfection.

One two three

Counting in is a venerable tradition. Auspicious start.

She’s a real left winger ‘cause she been down south

Kind of ironic. Reminds me of Kinsey, from Mad Men. Also, refers to Frank Black’s time down south of south.

And held peasants in her arms
She said “I could tell you stories that could make you cry”
“What about you?”
I said “Me too”

Now this is really the beginning of the awesomest awesome song of songs. Because on the one hand, a lot of what passes for deep, emotional talk is just pablum or posturing with an eye toward getting laid. In some senses, it seems like charity work was invented only moments before dinner parties so that people could have something other than wine to talk about.

“I could tell you a story that will make you cry”
And she sighed “Ah”

Clearly setting up a bizarro-Canterbury Tales-type thing, here. I know the origin of the EP’s (from which the song is) title has to do with Christian rock singer Larry Norman, but you could also see the title with having to do with the Canterbury Tales. In fact, I wrote my comp. lit. dissertation on this very subject.

I said “I wanna be a singer like Lou Reed”
“I like Lou Reed” she said sticking her tongue in my ear”

Or you could read this song as a kind of summation of Stuff White People Like, but before SWPL existed. Therefore, you could read this song as Frank Black being able to see the fucking future.

“Let’s go, let’s sit, let’s talk”
“Politics go so good with beer”

I believe that’s two more from the SWPL categories.

“And while we’re at it baby, why don’t you tell me one of your biggest fears?”
I said “Loosing my penis to a whore with disease”
“Just kidding” I said
“Losing my life to a whore with disease”
She said “Excuse me please?”
I said “Losing my life to a whore with disease”

Now see, this is where the song goes from, say, jokey pastiche to subversion, Black’s weapon of choice in the war against boring fucking people, which, let’s take a minute out to say that there’s nothing wrong (or even “wrong”) with boring people—everyone seems boring to someone, anyway, so it’s perspectival. But there are people who are so unflappably ossified that it seems as if they were crapped from a calcified womb.

I said “Please… I’m a humble guy with a healthy desire”
“Don’t give me no shit because…”

Which is not to say, though, that Frank Black does not want to get laid. Because he does. He wants to fuck you and your dog and your neighbor and your mother, too. Without all the fanfare.

I’ve been tired [6x]

The greatest-sounding chorus in all of rock music.

I tell a tale of a girl, but I call her a woman

Now here we get the actual tale. “Frank’s Tale,” it would be called. And it’s basically written after the style of Chaucer, who, if you get past all his retarded, barely-English English, writes basically exclusively about all manner of fucking.

She’s a little bit older than me
Strong legs, strong face, voice like milk, breasts like a cluster of grapes

“Voice like milk” should be in every young man’s storytelling lexicon. What does it mean? It means smooth and silky, white, mammary, which leads to “breasts like a cluster of grapes.” The two phrases summon a range of images, from peanut-and-butter sandwiches (clearly connoting a mother-fucking complex) to pouring champagne across a lover’s chest to swallowing semen.

I can’t escape her ways she raise me
She’ll make you feel like Solomon be one of your babies even if you had no one

These lines don’t make as much literal sense, but they’re even more evocative. Being “raised” (levitate me), lifted, exulted and so forth is comparable to almost any experience: It can mean something simple but it’s also, again, suggestive of a mother-son relationship.

Being made to feel like Solomon either—a) is one of your babies or b) is, with regard to Black’s being a baby—is a densely constructed idea that has to do with the range of sin, wisdom, and motherhood. Frank Black scholars are churning out book after book on the line as we speak (“speak”).

(And while we’re at it baby, why don’t you tell me one of your biggest fears?)

Kim Deal as deus ex machina cum mother.

Took my sleep after setting my loins on fire
But that’s OK because…

Now we can see why Black’s been so tired.

I’ve been tired [6x]

And how tired.

I’ve been tired [9x]
T-i-r-e-d spells it
Spells it

And how to spell it, just in case we missed the point. There’s a certain amount of circularity to the piece; if Black picks up his interlocutor, then she will have taken his sleep setting his loins on fire. Of course, the figurative mixing of “whore with disease” with all the mother imagery is a common trope—it describes the categorical existence of women, which would allow any woman to be the woman of the story. And the next night, again. Frank’s been tired. T-i-r-e-d tired.