Tame

Fast-paced and breathy, “Tame” typifies the quiet-loud Pixies dynamic that gave rise to the grunge movement. Musically, the song is based around a basic three-chord progression with three-bar phrases, “as opposed to a more square 16-beat feel that you would hear in a typical pop song” Black Francis told Esquire: "The lyrics of the song are about college girls who lived in my neighborhood in Boston that I found obnoxious or whatever. Probably I found college people in that area obnoxious in general, male and female: drunk college kids strutting around thinking that they’re great and me in my obnoxious way declaring them mediocre." Black Francis, NME, April 1989: "I don’t want to sound like a male chauvinist, but I have a male perspective, because I am male. ‘Tame’ is about women more than men. But the way some men treat their hair it’s incredible and I can’t understand all that deodorant and stuff. I’ve never related to it. My family’s rather spartan."