Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. XLI--The Breeders: Cannonball

Some years ago I read a piece (no idea where, though I think it might have been written by Dave Marsh) wherein the author claimed that rock and roll lyrics were more or less vapid, and we listened to such tunes for the music.  While I wouldn't say I buy into this theory, it does have some merit.  For instance, I have loved "Cannonball" by The Breeders for a number of years now, and until I looked up the lyrics today I had absolutely no fucking clue what the hell they were singing.

Of course, I still don't know what they're singing about, but at least now I know they're using actual words....

I came a little bit late to "Cannonball"--like about a dozen years after its release (better late than never...).  I was watching some VH1 top 100 songs of something or other sometime in the 2000s when it came up on the list and as I listened it turned into one of those "How the hell did I miss this one?" moments.  Turns out The Breeders were a hiatus project for Kim Deal of the Pixies (a band that, oddly enough, I also came to sometime after the fact).  Formed in 1990, The Breeders have stayed together (more or less) in several different incarnations until the present, though outside of Last Splash (the album that spawned "Cannonball") the band has not enjoyed a wealth of popular success.  "Cannonball reached #44 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.

"Cannonball" starts with a chant that's sounds like it came from the mouths of the Wicked Witch of the West's Winkie Guards (and who the hell knew they were called Winkie Guards?  Certainly not me, at least until about five minutes ago).  It quickly morphs into a bass line that is a wicked rat-a-tat-tat, to which a guitar solo is added which can best be described as what walking through a House of Mirrors would sound like musically.  Next in are some power chords, by which time if you're not shaking to the music you're probably in a coma.  And it's only then that Kim Deal's vocals come bounding in, and they're a cross between the pop sensibilities of The Bangles and the throatiness of Joan Jett.  The bass and guitars continue echoing around the vocals, with a few false stops thrown in, until the end--all in all, the best description I can give of the song is that it sounds like a roller coaster feels.  And just like a roller coaster, it's about four minutes of unbounded exhilaration.

Embarrassing Factoid:  While I'd love to use the line "The bong in this reggae song" as this week's lyric link, I have to admit that until just a couple of months ago, I thought the band was singing "Shimmy shake, shimmy shake" when they were actually singing, "In the shade, in the shade."  And my coolness quotient sinks like a rock....

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee