#74, “Wave Of Mutilation,” The Pixies (1989)

150 Favorite Songs: #74, “Wave of Mutilation,” The Pixies (1989)

If you’ve somehow never heard “Wave of Mutilation,” you’re probably expecting something different from what you’ll hear if you click that link, just based on the title. It sounds like it should be something metal, but instead it’s just about as pretty as any song anybody ever wrote, something that could pass for a lost Lennon/McCartney single from The White Album.

That version up there isn’t the only version of the song that was released by the Pixies in 1989, though. That arrangement—called the “UK Surf” mix, which Pitchfork claims is because it “shows the band’s surf-rock tendencies” (which is… not true? Or surf-rock is something very different than I understand it to be)—was released as the b-side to another song from the same album. On the album itself, “Wave of Mutilation” is more rock and roll, with the guitars crunchier and the tempo up. It’s still not heavy—less of a headbanger and more of a “bop your head side to side”—but one thing I love about “Wave of Mutilation” is that it’s so obviously a special song that the Pixies, after recording it, essentially went ahead and covered their own song, reimagining it as a Beatles-esque ballad. Both versions land, and when the Pixies play it live, it’s roughly a fifty-fifty proposition which version you’ll hear. (When they recorded it live for the BBC for the Peel Sessions, they sort of split the difference between the two, starting off faster and then getting prettier as it goes on.)

Sometimes, it feels like every idea has already been had, or like there’s nothing left to discover in a world that’s been pretty thoroughly mined of every resource—literal natural resources or metaphorical creative resources—and one thing “Wave of Mutilation” makes clear is that this is not true, that there is still a deep vein of joy left to tap, that even when working in the same milieu as The Beatles or The Kinks or somebody who you might believe had used up all the good melodies decades ago, you can find a “Wave of Mutilation” in there, and write something that will go on to become its own kind of classic.

And “Wave of Mutilation” is that for sure. We were at a show a few nights ago, watching Hurray For The Riff play, and after their first set, they came out for an encore, and when the band came back, that iconic Kim Deal bass line started, and I knew I would be hearing “Wave of Mutilation” played live again, a standard that speaks to so many people. Hurray For The Riff Raff played it slow and pretty (here’s a video of them doing it earlier in the tour, in Toronto), which is the way Rhett Miller played it when I saw him do the song years ago. Superdrag played it loud and rock-y when they did it on a Pixies tribute album years ago, which is also how the Pixies did it the time I saw them on the reunion tour. Anytime it feels like everything has been done before, I find it helpful to remember that “Wave of Mutilation” didn’t exist until it did, and now it’ll be here forever.