Break my face in
It was the kindest touch you ever gave
Wrap my dreams around your thighs
And drape my hope upon the chance to touch your arm
Fabulous muscles
Cremate me after you cum on my lips
Honey boy place my ashes in a vase
Beneath your workout bench
No romance no sexiness
But a star-filled night
Kneeling down before the now familiar flesh
Of your deformed penis
Wigging out before the unfamiliar flesh
Of my broken neck



Lyrics submitted by PLANES

Track duration: 04:11


Fabulous Muscles (Mama Black Widow Version) song meanings
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38 Comments

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  • +1
    General Comment:i'm currently reading the "Mama Black Widow" book right now--i accidentally found it in a bookstore, and got it on a whim just because i love this song.

    the novel is just like many xiu xiu songs, full of heartbreak and tragedy. no wonder jamie wrote a song about the main character. he perfectly captured the rawness of the novel and made it his own. fucking gold!


    Flag kerwhamon June 09, 2010   Link
  • +1
    General Comment:If anyone has read the book mama black widow the song pretty much is about what happens to otis.
    Flag iirzon October 22, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I love how (riptionary) just ripped their interpretation from some other web site, probably word for word then the even less intelligent (tom violence) obviously found the same quote somewhere, and is also trying to pass it off as his own. Without reading the other postings? Riptionary, you're the fucking IDIOT.

    But I think the fact that this song is called "FABULOUS muscles" is a good give away it's being sung from a male perspective, seeing as how Fabulous is such a stand out gay word, especially in that context, and if you've seen Jamie sing this, there's too much emotion to think he's not singing from experience, but yes tom, and ripshit, that is what I get from the song as well, but I feel you'd have to read mama black widow: the Novel, get a real feeling of this song, and I have not, but I'm sure some answers lye there. I also read in an interview that in a previous band (I believe it was IBOPA) Jamie received head from a drag queen he'd long been obsessed with, while he was playing on stage, so that may also tie into it
    Flag Joeyfuckingtoddon April 01, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:i think that the singer is telling the story of a girl who loves her boyfriend very much and does many things for him(cum on my lips) and wants to be with him forever(place my ashes...)
    her boyfriend is abusive(broken neck) but she doesnt care becasue she is blinded by love and his looks (fabulous muscles)
    the boyfriend pays little attenton to her (no romance...) and doesnt let her touch him anywhere else(and drape my hope..)

    but what do i know ive only seen it a hundered times
    Flag vincesegeron January 30, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I'm suprised that nobody is taking the lyrics on a literal level, since they are at their most powerful and disturbing without any kind of analytical filter. I mean, he is definatley making intentional choices with the characters types that are participating in the story to say something beyond the literal surface meaning(I agree that workout bench= stereotypical jock, and its very possible that the story itself is an allegory for a physically or emotionally abusive relationship, either gay or straight), but the story itself can (and I think should) also stand alone as what I think of as an even more extreme and less imagery-veiled type of Neutral Milk Hotel-ish storytelling (sorry, ignore that last part if it doesn't make sense. I don't want to go into it).

    I see the events of the story unfolding as follows (Although the story is told out of order so that we come in at the moment of violence and the explaination follows after):

    * A boy or girl is attracted to a boy's fabulous muscles.

    * The boy/girl sees the boy's penis. It is deformed, and unfamiliar. He/she reacts the way one reacts to unfamilar flesh.

    * The boy begins to hit to him/her because of the way he/she reacts. Although the fabulous muscles have now become a destructive force, the romance of his/her attraction to them is still (very disturbingly) carried on through the lyrics, music, and vocal inflection.

    * The boy breaks his/her neck in the beating (intentionally or unintentionally), and then participates in some sort of necrophilia which is unspecified in its extremity (he may rape the body or simply masturbate and cum on the face).

    * The boy then burns the body and hides it under his workout bench (This part I think reeks overwhelmingly of metephor. Instead of being literal, this could be simply a thought of the dying narrator to show him/her carrying on the romance of the fabulous muscles, or just the point in the literal story that is intended to break down to give way to the allegoric interpretations of the story).

    Anyway, I think that Xiu Xiu (like most good storytellers) is able and willing to write songs from many different points of view and narrator types, and having this story being told in a romantic but not sentimental or dilluted/sugar coated fashion from the point of view of a person who has been murdered in a crime of passion is, I think, a complete poetic success.

    And also:
    "No romance no sexiness
    But a star-filled night"

    Awesome. Nothing romantic about what happened except the sadness of something so simplistically beautiful being taken away.
    Flag GreenTeaWateron January 08, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:There is nothing really "obvious" about a Xiu Xiu song. And just because it's written in first-person doesn't mean it's from Jamie's perspective.

    Am I the only one who thought it might have something to do with rape? But it probably is about Mama Black Widow like several people have already posted.
    Flag Klausflorideon July 12, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:i think riptionary was totally right. and also that most of you are being homofobic. i dont think he wants to die for being gay, actually with 'but a star-filled night' he says he loves to do blowjobs, and prbbly you dont understand the pleasure of such things. but its so poetic, 'cremate me after you cum on my lips', cuz thats all that he wanna do.
    however, he looks like hes being very cynical, and still, giving that guy head is absolutely wonderful.
    i actually feel really comfortable with this song, and oh, i love it so much.
    Flag nfrrnon April 23, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I don't really understand how most of you are coming up with these interpretations. It seems like you're just picking out certain lines instead of looking at the song as a whole. I think literally what is happening is the narrator is telling this all to his lover. The narrator is telling his gay lover to kill him, have sex with him and then cremate him. He doesn't want it to be sexy or romantic either. The underlining meaning, though, has something to do with the stereotypical gay culture I think. You've got the word "fabulous," the use of "honey-boy" and that mention of a "workout bench" where the narrator wants his ashes kept under. Perhaps the narrator wants to die because he is gay. He wants his lover to "drape" his sexual desires permanently.
    Flag grrreon March 12, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:MEANING: the narrator of the song was beaten and forced to give oral sex to someone. this someone is probably a jock because of the "work out bench" line. I think it's a possibility that the narrator actually likes the man who abused him but a lot of the things in this song are sarcastic or cynical. "Fabulous Muscles" is definitely sarcastic because after the narrator is forced into fellatio he feels like dying "place my ashes in a vase..." The first line is also pretty sarcastic. Or you could interpret the first line as saying that getting beaten up wasn't bad at all compared to the humiliation of the forced blowjob. sad song man...
    Flag poopsmcgee567on February 20, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:twocent, that was the greatest comment ever.
    Flag admon July 22, 2007   Link

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