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Monkeys Gone to Heaven

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The cover art to“Doolittle”features the image of a monkey (with a halo) as well as the numbers six and seven.The artist behind it, Vaughan Oliver, conceptualized the imageryafter listening to“Monkey Gone to Heaven”.Also as originally intended, Frank was going to entitle the album “Whore”.But after seeing the cover art which Oliver put together, he opted not to. When Monkey Gone To Heaven was released as a single on 20 March 1989, the cover depicted a benign simian with a halo over its head. And then as far as the title goes, as reported by Rolling Stone the reason Frank decided to name the song so is because the titular phrase, to him, “sounds neat”. So there’s really no need to dive into what “ monkey gone to heaven” is supposed to mean since, according to the author himself, it isn’t meant to actually point to anything. I think within every genre of music the best songs can be played on an acoustic guitar and they've got a great melody. That was the case with Doolittle. It was routined on an acoustic guitar and all of the songs work on an acoustic guitar. I think that's the way to start, and then how you shape things after that is the art of making a record, really, or being a good band. The song has to work on its own, it has to stand up, and you have to be able to play it. You can't rely on bells and whistles to make things work, it has to be already there within the structure of the song, and that was certainly the case with 'Monkey Gone To Heaven'.

Some of the songs on Doolittle were newish and others they'd had for a while," Norton says. "For instance, they'd had 'Here Comes Your Man' for quite some time, and the version that appeared on the album was the third time they had recorded it. I listened to the different versions and came up with that arrangement of the song. The connotationbehind it all is that the devil is superior to man, with God trumping both.And needless to say, such terminology can lead to a number of speculations as to why the Pixies would include such an idea in a song which appears to be primarily about the environment in the first place. The second verse concerns the damage to the ozone layer, claiming that "everything is gonna burn, we'll all take turns, I'll get mine too."Hence the need for 15 songs on the Doolittle album, only three of which make it past the three-minute mark. "We'd usually work on 22 or 23 songs for a Pixies album, and some of them would end up as 'B' sides and others would be scrapped halfway through," Norton states. Gil Norton and engineer Al Clay with Theremin player Robert Brunner, in a photo taken during the recording of the Pixies' later Bossanova album. Photo: Gil Norton The songdidn’t make a lot of noise on music charts. However, it most notably peaked at number five on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay listing.But as such stories sometimes go, the tune still went on to be recognized as a “Single of the Year” by the likes of Rolling Stone, NME and The Village Voice.And even more impressively, it landed on the 2004 edition of Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest of All Time” list (though it has been removed from the ranking since). More Facts

Since we had under three weeks to record, most of Doolittle was a song a day, and we managed to keep to that except for 'Monkey Gone To Heaven'. It was a case of 'Oh, it would be great just to try putting some strings on that,' and because we didn't have enough time in Boston, we had to wait until we got to the Carriage House in Connecticut." Going DowntownMonkey Gone To Heaven opens with a tale of an "underwater guy who controlled the sea" who comes a cropper from (presumably) the "Syringe Tide" and the other effluents that were being dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. "The man dying from the sludge in the water in New Jersey is just me getting mythological," said Francis. "It's Neptune that I picture dying from the pollution." The way I work with bands is I do a lot of pre-production, and I make sure everybody knows what they are doing," Norton explains. "I think you've really got to understand how you're recording, why you're recording and what is important about a specific performance in terms of what is good and what isn't. I try to get a band to think about that as much as possible, because I can tell them that something's good or bad, but if they don't understand that then they're not going to do anything different, because they're just thinking that everything's great. So, there's a lot of playing with arrangements during pre-production, and by the time we hit the studio everyone's got an understanding of what they're supposed to be doing. Whether or not we achieve that is a different matter. At least it isn't confusing. I don't like my approach to be confusing to artists.

Having engineered the whole record, towards the end I just thought it would be great to get a fresh pair of ears on this as well, because sometimes when you're producing and engineering it's nice to get a fresh perspective on the mix. So, I asked Steven Haigler to come in and help me with it, using the SSL at the Carriage House. At that point, I was used to mixing on SSL — I didn't mind what we recorded on, although I still don't really like recording on SSLs. I'd much rather be on a Neve or a Trident... or an MCI, or whatever, just to get another character in there, and then I do like mixing on SSL. To me, it's just like driving a car. It's very easy, you sort of know where you are, and I also quite like that sort of sound it gives at the end of it. If you've got all the bottom end and you've got what you want, it finishes it off nicely." They were from a local orchestra and they were really cool," remarks Norton, who in addition to producing and engineering the Pixies' two subsequent albums, Bossanova and Trompe Le Monde, has since worked with artists such as James, Del Amitri, Counting Crows, Foo Fighters and, most recently, Gomez. "They had just done a show and they were still in their tuxes and gowns. I sang to Arthur what I wanted to be played and he just sketched it out for me. Then we fine-tuned it, because without an arrangement we needed to find out if it was going to work or not, and the musicians began playing, and within two hours we had the bits that we wanted." To The Mix Mynamemyway from Not Tellin', VaIn biology class, we were talking about the pollution of the ozone layer and I was dissppointed to find that I was one of the few who believed in it. After the discussion, we took a test and, after I was done, I wrote down the 2nd verse of this song on the front and turned it in to my teacher. I thought it was witty. Rolling Stone: Monkey Gone to Heaven". Rolling Stone. 2004-11-04. Archived from the original on October 1, 2007 . Retrieved 2007-04-21. Strings recorded on December 4, 1988, at Carriage House Studios, Stamford, Connecticut, United States

Very few Buddy Holly songs were over two minutes, and that was an amazing thing for Charles to do, really, because how could I argue with him? Some of the best, most classic songs that anybody remembers are the Buddy Holly songs, and they were short and sweet, bang-bang-bang. That was very educational for me on so many levels, and it increased Charles's trust in me when he could see I was taking that on board." Portable Pixies Goldman, Marlene. "Here and There and Everywhere". Alternative Press Vol IV, No 22. September 1989. Climate change is not a new thing. Ecology had become more of a talking point in the 1970s, but caring for the environment was still seen as a niche, slightly "hippie-ish" pastime. Artist History— Pixies". Billboard.com. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007 . Retrieved 2007-04-20.

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