best pavement songs ever (5-1)

Here we are, the top five. Hope you dig ‘em.

05 “Frontwards” | Watery, Domestic

“I’ve got style/ Miles and miles/ So much style that it’s wasted.” It is, above all others, the definitive Pavement lyric, even though most folks would have trouble pinpointing the song from which it comes. But even without that line, “Frontwards” would belong here. The song straddles the rough amateurism of Slanted and the pop maturity of Crooked Rain, a very attractive combo. (Watery, Domestic came out between the two albums.) (Also, it’s ridiculous that AMG gives this a bad review, as this is maybe the best thing Pavement ever released. Anyway.) There’s a great hint of finality to the song, from the opening chord on. It’s always felt a bit like a eulogy to me.

04 “Grounded” | Wowee Zowee

The closest Pavement ever got to grunge — that post-chorus riff-build — another real fun downer, lots of tension, a sense of purpose. The best I can do to advocate for this song is implore you to watch this performance, which is stupendous:

03 “Zurich Is Stained” | Slanted & Enchanted

We need to start by quoting the lyrics to this one in full. (Maybe think of “Zurich” as being a white cushion on his and his gal’s brand new, crazy expensive couch. Maybe that will help.)

I can’t sing it strong enough
That kind of strength I just don’t have
But if you watch the light change
Don’t hold them hanging

You think it’s easy, but you’re wrong
I’m not one half of the problem
Zurich is stained and it’s not my fault
Just hold me back or let me run

So what does it mean, a mistake or two
If it’s the kind of mistake no one can trace
To the fountain where we sold it
And held them hanging

You think it’s easy, but you’re wrong
I’m not one half of the problem
Zurich is stained and it’s not my fault
Just hold me back or let me run
You think it’s easy, but you’re wrong
I’m not one half of the problem
Zurich is stained and it’s not my fault
Just hold me back or let me run

The simplicity and directness of these words are great, as is the fact that Malk sings them so plainly, real flat, not a lot of feeling, just getting it down on paper. It lends the song a lot more credibility than some wrought performance might (fortunately for the song, and us, I’m not sure if Malk even has that in him). The song is really short — 101 seconds — and throughout there’s this great, really bad slide guitar squeaking and squirting in the background, which I’ve always heard as kind of an id to the vocal’s ego. Which probably sounds ridiculous, I realize, but what do you expect from a liberal arts education?

02 “Texas Never Whispers” | Watery, Domestic

More Watery, Domestic goodness. Reason why this song ranks so high:

a) The song title, which is just a spectacular bit of wording. It’s like some phrase that Peter Bogdanovich or even John Lennon would think of, and then do their best to repeat at every instance (I know I would).
b) That opening overblown guitar bit, the pedals and guitar shrieking out this almost ceremonial melody, like announcing the arrival of a foreign head of state.
c) After that drops out, Malk opens with, “Here we go/ She’s on a hidden tableau.” It just sounds cool, folks.
d) “She’s so lackadaisical/ Should have been a West Coast bride.” I feel that, ya know?
e) The song is huge. There’s a spaciousness to it, an expansiveness to the arrangement. It’s wide and tall (I feel like most Pavement songs are tall but not wide). The arrangement is very impressive and mature.
f) The coda at the end with the flirting guitar solo/drum fills and the fuzz bass.
g) “This tunnel is a Tex-as mile.”

01 “Pueblo” | Wowee Zowee

So this one ain’t even close. For me, there’s “Pueblo,” one of the last songs on Wowee Zowee, and then there’s everything else. From the first moment I heard it, I was dumbstruck. Pavement never played around with tension/release — too good for it! — but here they succumbed to the temptation, concocting these really subdued but foreboding verses that would just explode into a chorus so impossibly huge, almost never-ending in its breadth thanks to two sustained guitar notes that clash and then harmonize with Malkmus’ vocals. Kicking into the chorus is this out-of-nowhere piercing guitar dropping three notes fast — “duh-duh-duuuuuuuh” — and then it all comes rushing forward, like a stampede at 45rpm.

And yet there’s not a really strong structure to it. It basically works like this: intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, post-chorus instrumental noodling that lasts for well over a minute, sorta-verse only more like a middle-eight, chorus explosion, explosion, explosion, fragments, fin. It’s just a really long tease, except with two tremendous payoffs, the second of which still astonishes me ten years later.

When I was 17 and living in the boondocks of Virginia, I had a tape that I would listen to repeatedly when driving around. I can’t remember what all was on there. I remember Pavement, Stone Roses, Breeders, Nirvana, Archers of Loaf, Oasis, things like that — the Pavement song was, obviously, “Pueblo.”

One of my closest friends at the time lived on top of a mountain, and had a two-mile long gravel driveway down to a slightly larger road. Well, one night I was driving down that road and rocking out to “Pueblo” in my stepmother’s Taurus at a pretty good clip. Singing along, pounding the steering wheel, that sort of thing. But as I got to the end of the driveway, I noticed at the last second that the gate that was almost always open — a really long, white, solitary pole — was partially closed, and was pointing into the road. I slammed on the brakes, but it was too late: I shut my eyes, and heard the sound of shattered glass and an awful tearing sound.

When I opened my eyes, I was confronted with a large white object pointing across my face. As I got my bearings, I realized that this long white pole had gone through the windshield, coming so close to my head that it had ripped the headrest behind me IN HALF. Somehow I still had my wits about me, so I very slowly backed the car up so the pole was out of the interior, and I stopped at a nearby trailer to use their phone. My family was obviously none too happy, and it was the closest I have ever come to death. And it’s all “Pueblo”‘s fault. Thanks, Pavement!