Subbacultcha

its about the Goth subculture, hence, "subbacultcha" all the dressing in black, the eyeliner, the black feather boa his erotic vulture is wearing; hes attracted to this goth chick, hes "hoping to have her in the sack", so he adopts the whole goth thing in order to impress/get closer to her

According to a feature story, "Rebirth of the Pixies", in Spin (Sept. 2004), Frank Black a/k/a Charles Thompson was seeing a gal named Jean Walsh who, though playing word games, and her love for "hard b0iled '40s movie dialogue", inspired him to write these songs about her--"Subbacultcha" a good example. I was glad to know what was behind that twisty l'il wordplay anyway--I was on an email list around the late '90s for info on upcoming shows, new albums, etc. by players who emerged from that vital late '80s Boston indie scene: Frank Black and the Catholics, the Breeders (Kim & Kelly Deal), former members of Throwing Muses (Tanya Donnelly, Kristin Hersh), et. al. and the list was called "Subbacultcha", which I thought was the best name for what these artists were up to at the time doing other projects. Then like all interesting lists, it died out in short measure, LOL.

Just another quick note about the first two lines... I don't know if it's what the first commenter meant by "reflexive" or "symmetry," but I noticed that they use the same words, just scrambled up (at least in the At the BBC version). The cool thing about this is the way Frank Black ends the second line; "There is something about this song" has all the words of the first line, except it's missing "a." In the At the BBC version, Black trails off at the end of the second line ("uhhh") so it's a perfect mapping. What you hear is "This is a song about something there / There is something about this song a..."

Sorry for being a huge nerd and possibly ruining the song with analysis, but I thought it was awesome that Black would put so much thought into two little lines.

No comments? What's up with that.

This song is a bit different to the others on the album. The thing that I like about it is the creative use of syllables and timing in the words - "everything was fine down here / what you call it here / call it what you will here" - the words carry their own rythm and the reversal of the wording adds a sort of symmetry.

The symmetry is all through the song, the whole "I was.../she was..." pairing of the verses.

Also interesting are the reflexive lyrics: "this is a song about something there / there's something about this song" (more lyrical symmetry too).

And the end lines - "when you look at the sky in a poetic kind of way/you know when you grope for luna", seems to me that this is a comment on the moon being an inspiration for anyone with a poetic/romantic personality but our attempts to write when inspired by the beauty of the moon (luna) is always relatively clumsy compared to the reality (we can only "grope" for it).

This song is great to hear live, charles articulates it so well, and such fun lyrics. "i was wearing eye liner, she was wearing eye liner" so unsophisticated for such a weird song. Also the spoken beginnings and endings are great. I dont have any insight to this song, i just like it.

This song is great to hear live, charles articulates it so well, and such fun lyrics. "i was wearing eye liner, she was wearing eye liner" so unsophisticated for such a weird song. Also the spoken beginnings and endings are great. I dont have any insight to this song, i just like it.

Frank was wearing eyeliner when I saw him on the 24th. Best night of my life. Words can't even begin to describe it. I am a changed person; no joke.

They didn't play this song, but that's ok.

I love the "you know when you grope for luna" part as well, and I thought the same thing about it as caitsith01 up there ^^. I love how the music sort of stops when he says it, too, making it sound somewhat awkward, which I think adds to the message of how, as cait puts it, "our attempts to write...[are] always relatively clumsy compared to the reality". Not sure if that was intentional, that's just what I get out of it.

I love the way guitar fits in to the ambient of the song, the way it melts with Frank´s narration.Awesome!

i agree with Superabound about the gothic meaning and i think that there is a hint of wiki culture in the word "luna" but not enough occurrences of the word so might not be, i like the "i was../she was.." pairing and frank's mannages to emphesize the fact that goth is something undefined using the "what you call it here call it what you will here way down down down in this subbacultcha" i love this song and the pixies very much.

It's a hell of a lot of fun to just shout along with the song at random parts. "You know when you grope for LU-NA!" is one of the funnest damn things to say on te face of the earth.