Velouria

The character Black Francis built for this song lives in a cave and makes garments of her own fabric. Her feet are granite. She will not be reached or possessed. The name Velouria sounds like something soft you could hold. That is exactly the point. The theremin was Robert F. Brunner’s contribution to the recording, and it is not decorative. It sits underneath everything and unsettles. The song does not crash the way Pixies songs usually crash. It builds and hovers and refuses to land. The obsession in it is real. The object of it is completely out of reach.

Producer Gil Norton had made Doolittle with the band the year before. He was back for Bossanova. The recording engineer was Alistair Clay. The single came out on 4AD on July 16, 1990, catalog number AD 0009. The B-side was “I’ve Been Waiting for You,” a Neil Young cover taken from Young’s debut album. The pairing is not accidental. Young’s song is also about wanting something that will not come. Two songs about the same kind of longing. One price of a seven-inch single.

Doolittle had made the Pixies difficult to follow. Black Francis responded by going stranger. Surf rock, science fiction, mythology. None of it connected in the obvious ways. Bossanova followed a month later. “Velouria” is where that logic is clearest. The song does not explain the character. It does not resolve. The theremin keeps hovering after the guitars stop. Released July 16, 1990. The song is still looking for whatever it was looking for.

“Velouria” reached number 28 on the UK Singles chart. It was the band’s first top 40 hit in the United Kingdom. The song also reached number four on the US Alternative Airplay chart. As it climbed in the UK, the BBC offered them a Top of the Pops slot. The rule was that you needed a video. So the band went to a quarry outside Manchester, ran toward a camera, and collected 23 seconds of footage. The director slowed it down to fill the length of the song. They never performed it on the show. The video is what remains.