Lyrics for Velouria as interpreted by riffic

Velouria Lyrics
Hold my head
We'll trampoline
Finally through the roof
On to somewhere near
And far in time
Velouria
Her covering
Traveling career
She can really move
Oh velveteen!

My Velouria, my Velouria
Even I'll adore you
My Velouria

Say to me
Where have you been?
Finally through the roof
And how does lemur skin
Reflect the sea?

We will wade in the shine of the ever
We will wade in the shine of the ever
We will wade in the tides of the summer
Every summer
Every summer
Every
My Velouria
My Velouria

Forever green
I know she's here
In California
I can see the tears
Of Shastasheen

My Velouria, my Velouria
Even I'll adore you
My Velouria

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reidbottorff
06-21-2006

Rated 0 
The break in the song near the middle truely stands out to me as a moment of melodic clarity and compositional brilliance. Very Brian Wilson-esque. It makes my hair stand on end. I wish it could last longer.

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dpakoha
09-16-2006

Rated 0 
what the thing is shastasheen?

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tex17371
10-08-2006

Rated 0 
Wow, reading all the posts it seems the the simpsons character "The comic book guy"really does exist!! - oh no, I just admitted I watch the simpsons..
Have to agree with Ailuj, the "forever green' part of the song just hits a certain chord.
Really logged on to find out what Shastasheen is, I've googled, I've yahood, but the closest I've come to understand is from thsi forum, some mountain in Cal. Us.

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Gurtjun
10-21-2006

Rated 0 
i know, a bunch of lyrics geeks. i love try getting in the head of the writer.

i think its about a made up girl he adores. no real arguments just the velveteen parts reminds me of the velveteen rabit story.

further more frank uses a lot of lines just to fill up the empty spaces... just think of the line 'little eifel stands in the archway' in alec eifel. doesnt do anything for the story but fills up the empty space..

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frmw
12-26-2006

Rated 0 
This song is purple blue AND green. One of my favorites.

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eraserheads
01-15-2007

Rated 0 
I love all alternative rock band specially PIXIES, Shades Apart, Weezer, And Velouria means Girlfriend! Its not a name dumbass!

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heidismells
04-13-2007

Rated 0 
I CAN'T BELIEVE NO ONE SO FAR HAS MENTIONED THIS...but this song is about a businessman with the last name Velouria who went crazy and thought he had turned into a couch...its in Fool the World: The Oral History of a Band Called Pixies...its in the damn book!!!

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Seandd
08-06-2007

Rated 0 
"shastasheen" is actually "shasta sheen"- the tears of Shasta being dew on the mountains.

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magicbean
09-25-2007

Rated 0 
Shut the fuck up with Weezer already fuck. What does the fucking song mean?

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bakasamm.EXE
10-04-2007

Rated 0 
weezer didnt steal it, first of all.

they did a cover on it, meaning they played the song their way.

ANYWAYS, i love this song, both versions.

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polvott
11-17-2007

Rated 0 
I'm really hung up in the Big rabbit in my head thing. Anyone know what this means?

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magoosh008
11-18-2007

Rated 0 
This song is great! The video was purposely done with like 5 seconds of actual footage just so MTV would play it. Awesome song, really, and I have no idea what it means.

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Jegling
03-01-2008

Rated 0 
There's something really dark about the whole song. almost like he's trapped in an eternal summar being forced to worship the same girl

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TheComposer
03-01-2008

Rated 0 
It's clearly about a girl...never seen a velveteen?? If you don't believe me this is what Frank Black said "So I had to think about what "Velvety" meant to me, and it's really lyrically the sister song of a Pixies song called "Velouria." It's the same character, the same imagery. Part of the same lore of Northern California, and Mount Shasta. This woman that I have in mind she's covered in velour. She's like a lemur. She's human, but she's kind of like a cat. She's feline, because she's covered in this short soft hair. Velvety. I suppose it's partially based on my wife, mixed in with lots of other things, things that I've read and things that I've seen when driving around that part of the world, that area of Mt. Shasta. Weed, Eureka."

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tastemaker
06-14-2008

Rated 0 
I'm really glad you all told me about the Lemuria deal. I think that's hilarious. Anyway, the simple fact that this is a Pixies song makes it related to drugs. Because who writes sober about Mt. Shasta and lemur-coated women?

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shimrod
07-06-2008

Rated 0 
"we will wade in the shine of the ever"

One of the most gorgeously evocative lines ever written. God I love this band.

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igotfakeid
07-06-2008

Rated 0 
This song sounds like what it feels like to be in love

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igotfakeid
07-06-2008

Rated 0 
VELOURIA
"A space girl who could come from Bowie's world, a friend of Ziggy Stardust. "Velours" with an "a" at the end sounds like "Victoria"" (reference to the song by The Kinks) (BF)

"At a Black Francis solo gig at McCabe's circa '91, he introduced "Velouria" by saying it was about a woman who lived in a mountain (or something similar). Mt. Shasta is located in Northern California ("I know she's here / in California / I can see the tears / of Shasta sheen"). "Shasta sheen" could be how the mountain looks in the sunlight when it is covered in snow. Or when it's covered in Velouria's tears." (reported by Ryan E. Vincent)

"That was My Victoria, pretty good, but The Kinks song...I don't know it's gotta be a good song to get away with it. But when I found "Velouria", it sounded great." (Black Francis in a Q article)

"I had to rewrite that lyric several times. It was just too cryptic. Too 'Dungeons & Dragons'. I guess it's harking back to Billy Goodman (cf. The Happening). In California, there's this thing about the Lemurians, the sister people to the Atlanteans, whose civilisation sank and they all took off in boats and went to live in Mount Shasta in California. I just thought it was great. Velouria; the sci-fi girl. A love song about time travel." (BF in NME)

"Kind of a love song, but a lot of the content comes from the Rosicrucians. They believe in a lost continent called Lemuria. That sank and now the inhabitants are meant to live below Mount Shasta in California." (Frank Black in SELECT, October 1997)

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igotfakeid
07-06-2008

Rated 0 
VELOURIA
"A space girl who could come from Bowie's world, a friend of Ziggy Stardust. "Velours" with an "a" at the end sounds like "Victoria"" (reference to the song by The Kinks) (BF)

"At a Black Francis solo gig at McCabe's circa '91, he introduced "Velouria" by saying it was about a woman who lived in a mountain (or something similar). Mt. Shasta is located in Northern California ("I know she's here / in California / I can see the tears / of Shasta sheen"). "Shasta sheen" could be how the mountain looks in the sunlight when it is covered in snow. Or when it's covered in Velouria's tears." (reported by Ryan E. Vincent)

"That was My Victoria, pretty good, but The Kinks song...I don't know it's gotta be a good song to get away with it. But when I found "Velouria", it sounded great." (Black Francis in a Q article)

"I had to rewrite that lyric several times. It was just too cryptic. Too 'Dungeons & Dragons'. I guess it's harking back to Billy Goodman (cf. The Happening). In California, there's this thing about the Lemurians, the sister people to the Atlanteans, whose civilisation sank and they all took off in boats and went to live in Mount Shasta in California. I just thought it was great. Velouria; the sci-fi girl. A love song about time travel." (BF in NME)

"Kind of a love song, but a lot of the content comes from the Rosicrucians. They believe in a lost continent called Lemuria. That sank and now the inhabitants are meant to live below Mount Shasta in California." (Frank Black in SELECT, October 1997)

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igotfakeid
07-06-2008

Rated 0 
I don't have the transcript in front of me, but around the time of the release of Devil's Workshop/Black Letter Days, I interviewed Frank, and we spoke about the remake of "Velvety," which had originally been released as an instrumental on a Pixies b-side and now sported lyrics.

I recall that he said he always liked the riff of the song, which was originally named as a nod to the fact that it sounded a lot like The Velvet Underground (and in my opinion, quite obviously the instrumental run-through of "Guess I'm Falling In Love" from the mid-'80s outtakes compilation Another View).

He was tempted to let it remain an instrumental, but because he had titled the first one "instrumental version," on a whim, he felt compelled to match words to it. He then said that although he did not set out to, at some point he realized that he had actually wound up re-telling the narrative of "Velouria."

It seems to me that he is using a very Dylanesque lyrical conceit, in that he's created a fictional alien dreamgirl with some sort of implied link to the legend of Lemuria, but then made the grammatical leap of transposing the attributes and animus of the alien onto a known species of animal: the Lemur – which is not indigenous to the area he's speaking of (California).

The woman/alien/Lemur beckons to him during a car/motorcycle trip through the desert, and subsequently entrances him. In the end, it is ambiguous whether or not the creature also references (or in some way represents) an actual romantic interest of his in real life, but tempting nonetheless to look for such cryptic references, as they seem to crop up from time to time in a handful of his other songs.

~ Peter Radiator

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dd528
01-12-2009

Rated 0 
With regard to the video, the story can be found here:

http://aleceiffel.free.fr/videos.html

Basically the band were supposed to appear on Top of the Pops, but BBC policy only allowed bands to come on and play singles that had videos. So the band went to some quarry in Manchester (where I think TOTP was still being filmed at the time) and shot a few seconds of footage that was slowed down to last the 3 or 4 minute duration of the song. As far as I know, they never got asked back on the show, so it was all in vain anyway. Although I guess if there was no video, the song would never come on MTV, so it's not all bad.

I like this song a lot. Frank Black (as he was then) opened his set with this when I saw him with the Catholics. T'was mint.

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IZFERNOR
02-12-2009

Rated 0 
this song to me is about reaching new personal hights with somebody you love. to black tho it was probly bout drugs, but i could b wrong. btw does anyone no what kim is humming at the end? or is that jus gibberish?

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stoneo68
04-10-2009

Rated 0 
Kim is just spelling out Velouria -- V-E-L-O-U R-I-A

I always imagined that Velouria was the name of the weird little belly-dancer doll that appeared in some of the CD art and on the single:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velouria

Her black outfit looks like it could be velour.

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Rattu123
09-04-2009

Rated -1 
Do you guys know what "Velorio" means in spanish and portuguese? It means "funeral". Since Black likes using latin terms in his music, its clear this song is about a suicide or death, in a romantic way, he calls Death by "she". Who could explain the thing about the lemmur skin? Who's supposed to be here ("I know she's here") after long waiting ("Where have you been?")? Who could take him to "wade in the shine of the ever"? The correct answear is Death. Frank Black is a morbid poet.

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