The Breeders' Cannonball

I've given myself the task of writing about one song a week for 2024 because, well, I think it'd be fun.

The Breeders' Cannonball

Greatest rock band of the '90s, fuck you, I'm calling it.

OK OK, I jest, mostly because the '90s was probably the second-best decade for rock. But. What's most important is that, when you listen to The Breeders, they automatically become the greatest band you've ever heard. Because The Breeders are beyond thought - they are simply joy.

Well, at least "Pod" and "Last Splash" are. Hadn't heard much of "Title TK" beyond. "Pod" is less joy and more a fever dream.

I recall Steve Albini labeled The Pixies' music, Kim Deal's other famous band, "blandly entertaining college rock". As I got older, I became less outraged by the statement and now I'm at the point where I emphatically agree. Beyond "Debaser", the oeuvre is mostly composed of jams, which I think Francis Black doesn't mind as a description. I don't think Kim, the frontwoman for The Breeders, hates jams either. But she had (hey, she's still alive, so has may be the better word) an amazing eye for turning a jam from something that's niche, that's local, that's temporary into something, well, epic. Take the opening track, "New Year, of "Last Splash", whose "Cannonball" we are talking about today: it begins with that slow, bruising intro which sounds like "She's So Heavy", escalating with bullet speed into the track's second half, where Kim chants "I'm the sun, / I'm the New Year", because Kim really has transcended mortality and become concept herself. The guitar becomes ear-screechingly loud as the song devolves into sheer noise, only for Kim to come out of the clarity with "It's / true", almost a smirk on her face. Besides compositional brilliance, you can say The Breeders possess this one trait most valuable in music: a sense of humor.

But anyway, "Cannonball", the song that propelled them to popular attention only for them to lose it to booze and heroin. The song that may most epitomize the quirkiness of the '90s - Kim called it "grunggae" - much in the same way "Like A Rolling Stone" epitomizes the '60s, before both decades devolved into excess. The song that is the bridge from the erotic "Pod" to the cute "Last Splash". This truly great song I can only do a disservice talking about, but, fuck it. Last year was the 30th year anniversary of "Last Splash", so now seems like the right time.

Not like The Breeders took the music all that seriously, anyway. Either in spite of or as a result of their genius, they spent a lot of time on tour partying, and that mentality carried over into Coast Recorders when they recorded "Last Splash". Josephine Wiggs, Breeders' bassist, has admitted she's in the wrong key for the intro; the band left it in because they thought it was "cool". You know what else is cool? The band doing breathing exercises in the beginning of the song, as is depicted in the music video. And, you know what, it is fucking cool, because they do not care. Fun fact: when they did the song live, Kim would use a polystyrene cup to mimic the recording's effect.

Wiggs' elliptical bass and Jim Macpherson's love-taps give the feel that the band just started rehearsal. It's not until Kim or Kelley - who can really tell the twins apart? you can't use their guitar playing as a measurement, even though Kelley learned it literally a year ago - crashes in with that thunderous guitar that the song kicks into full gear. The message has been sent to the listener that their expectations should go fuck.

Sp-it-ting in a wi-sh-ing w-ell,
Bl-own to h-ell, crash -
On the last splash,

Kim sings, elongating the moment of impact. No need to point attention to the -ing, -ell, -ash endings, whose trajectory is obvious to us, the long -ing leading rapidly to the blunt -ash. That "wishing well" bit lends some fairy-tale aura to the lyrics, which, as "Pod" indicates, Kim is all too happy to subvert.

"I know you're a real cuckoo, / I know you're a cannonball." "Cu-ckoo". "Can-non-ball". The hard C's here are aggressive crescents, sharpened like Saracen scimitars. That shift, preceding "I know you, little libertine", from "cuckoo" to "cannonball" is very intentional. Note how your tongue shifts and the positions it moves, particularly behind your palate, when you say "I know you, little libertine - it's a very athletic motion on part of that muscle, as if the singer is wrestling a lover. "Cu-ckoo" is two hard sounds, two "cuhs", as if the singer is saying their object is a tough nut to crack. "Can-non-ball" is more relaxed, the "cah" sound less aggressive than "cuh"; the three syllables here make a U, with the tongue beginning at the roof of the mouth, dipping down for "non", and rising back up for "ball", as if the singer has finally softened the object of their longing, whipping them as if through their tongue. Note also the juxtaposition of "libertine" and "cannonball", which match in syllables, but the position of the l's are reversed, "libertine" beginning with "l" and "cannonball" ending with two. They comprise a circle where the singer knows ev-e-ry-thing about their listener.

But I'm almost certain this is a whole lot of baloney.

Of the interviews I've read with Kim, she's rather opaque when she comes to her lyrics. The "I know you, little libertine, / I know you're a cannonball" (has there ever been a sexier recognition of the dull, dirty, dim and iron-grey cannonball?) is mocking Marquis de Sade...and that's it. Good enough. The Beatles also had no idea what they were writing. Same thought as goes behind "I'll be your whatever you want: / the bong in this reggae song". It's precisely after that punchline the guitar chugs like a motor, and Macpherson's drums power through into the chorus: "In the shade, / in the shade," depicting the sensuality of that summer-sticky encounter.

That seems to describe the song the most: mischievous fun, epitomized by that inimitable bass, belonging more to jazz than rock, whose riff slowly infects the other instruments. Towards the end, the bass itself is varied, because nothing in this song can be strictly kept. The looped "a-ummmm, a-ummmm", "hey now", Kim's distorted background vocals, the silent bridge, all must fade and give way to the eponymous cannonball, which itself is a metaphor for boundless, exuberant, youthful energy, or whatever. (On this re-listen, I realized Kim sings the second "whatever you want" with a growl in her voice. Why? Who knows.)

It's a song that people can connect to without ever reaching the center of its understanding precisely because it's not understandable, as song and meaning ought to be. It means fucking nothing, like life means nothing, and therefore we should take joy in it not taking one meaning over the other. That always seemed to be Kim's philosophy: nihilism never bothers her because absence is not a negative, it's an invitation. In "Pod" she let the dreams flow in, and in "Last Splash" she wanted summer. Macpherson's sudden snare hit ending the song is not an indication the song is over, it's but a reminder to play the song again and continue the party. Or to play the rest of the album. Or, whatever. There's time enough for everything, life has no end.