Where Is My Mind? By Pixies - Songfacts

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Where Is My Mind?by Pixies

Album: Surfer Rosa (1988) License This Song  lyricsartistfacts

Songfacts®:

• This disorientation anthem was written by Pixies lead singer Frank Black, who was inspired by a snorkeling adventure. Under water, sometimes the only way to know which way is up is by looking at the air bubbles. Black told Select (October 1997): "That came from me snorkeling in the Caribbean and having this very small fish trying to chase me. I don't know why - I don't know too much about fish behavior."
• In a Songfacts interview with Frank Black, he talked about "Where Is My Mind?" Said Black: "In terms of the content, you don't know where that's going to come. It's such a ricochet, 'pinball wizard' kind of thing - these things bouncing into each other: words, concepts, manic thinking. Half the songs I've written, I had no idea what I was talking about. Certainly, anything that appears into the abstract, I don't know."
• This was used in the last scene of the 1999 mind-bending movie Fight Club, which helped introduce the Pixies to a new audience. Many other TV series and movies have used the song, often when a character is questioning his or her grip on reality. Movies to use it include:Horns (2013)Sucker Punch (2011) - Emily Browning versionObserve and Report (2009) - City Wolf versionMr. Nobody (2009)Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me (1992)A Matter of Degrees (1990)On the HBO series The Leftovers, the song is used as a motif when characters aren't sure what is real. Other TV series include:The Tick ("Where's My Mind" - 2017)Beyond ("The Hour of the Wolf" - 2017)The Good Wife ("Battle of the Proxies" - 2012)Mr. Robot ("eps1.8_m1rr0r1ng.qt" - 2015) - Maxence Cyrin versionCold Case ("True Calling" - 2008)How I Met Your Mother ("Cupcake" - 2006) Criminal Minds ("Sex, Birth, Death" - 2006)Veronica Mars ("Driver Ed" - 2005)
• Nada Surf covered this for the 1999 album Where Is My Mind? A Tribute To The Pixies; The Toadies covered it on their 2004 album Best Of Toadies: Live From Paradise. >> Suggestion credit: Rachel - London, England
• Producer Steve Albini used some unusual recording techniques on Surfer Rosa as he was desperate to avoid "the studio sound." For instance he moved all the studio equipment to its bathroom in the hope of achieving a real rather than studio echo on bassist Kim Deal's backing vocals for this and her lead vocals on Gigantic. Albini later admitted that the record could have been completed in a week were if not for the time wasted experimenting on projects like this.
• Frank Black acknowledges he would never have completed the song without some words of encouragement from his then-girlfriend and future wife, Jean Walsh."I was strumming the guitar in the bedroom, and she stuck her head out and said, 'Finish that song, that's a good one,'" he recalled to ABC Audio. "So I was, like, 'Oh, OK.' And she had never said anything like that to me before, and hasn't ever since."
• The Brooklyn-based independent publisher Akashic Books brought the song to life as a whimsical adventure story in a 24-page picture book. It tells the story of a young girl who loses her mind when she falls off a skateboard, then travels to magical lands in search of it.
• The singer Tkay Maidza covered "Where Is My Mind?" in 2021. Her rendition was used in a 2023 commercial for Apple's AirPods Pro that shows a listener shutting out the outside world with their noise canceling.
• If you're a fan of the Pixies and you use a Google phone, you might want to avoid listening to "Where Is My Mind" before bed. The song's opening line, "Stop!" triggers a feature on some Google phones that allows users to turn off their alarms by saying "stop." As a result, people are waking up to find that their alarms have been turned off, and they're not happy about it.The Pixies have apologized for the inconvenience, saying they didn't know about the feature when they wrote the song. They've also said that they hope fans can forgive them.

• More songs from Pixies
• More songs about insanity
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• More songs from 1988
• Lyrics to Where Is My Mind?
• Pixies Artistfacts

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Comments: 38

• Claerk from Idkthis song is so good and this helped me understand it
• Burt MacklinHow are you going to have a clip of Trainspotting and not list it among movies with "Where is my mind?" by The Pixies in it?
• Jon from Enumclaw , WaI love how this song is used at the end of Fight Club - so fitting and such a great song for such a great movie.
• Rick from Outthere, CoRead the next 2 posts : Try this trick and spin it YEAH.....
• Rick from Outthere, Cosoooooooo, feet in the air head on the ground ( All Turned Around )the lyrics: he swearsTryin' to talk to me, coy koi. ( All Turned Around } - I swear he ( the little fish ) was trying to talk to me.
• Rick from Outthere, Coi was swimmin' in the Carribean ( Rich People Go There )animals were hiding behind the rocks ( Materialistic People Hiding Behind Their Wealth )except for the little fish ( Every Day People )
• Karl from Ingatestone, United Kingdomi am surprised the space station NASA used this Pixies classic to wake up their system. i was delighted when i heard that, well, let alone if NASA came over to Ingatestone, they be playing 'Wave Of Mutilation' through the speakersSurfer Rosa! what an album. even though i have to wait until Christmas 2012 to get it
• Jeff from Austin, Txthis song is better every time I listen to it....which must be over 1000 times since the early 90s.
• Hunter from Flint, Migo to iTunes. there are dozens of covers, more than just placebo and toadies and whoever. none, of course, are nearly as good ad the original.
• Jonas from Nashport, OhIm sure all them covers are great, but for a song so bizzare"most of the pixies songs" Its blasphemy to concider a cover better. original song writer + very innovative recording leads to a true masterpeice.
• Gottfried from Cocks, AzerbaijanFrank Black, from the band, lives in Eugene Oregon, as I do. I heard in a guitar shop that he might live in a nearby neighborhood from where I live (the clerk was apparently lived somewhere near me).A guy who they toured with (somewhat recently) once served me a burger at McMennimens. It was very awesome.
• Nicolas from Montreal, QcSometimes songs are so open to interpretation that many things can make sense. Frank Black said it was about snorkeling in the carribean, but I don't think that's how David Fincher felt about it. This song playing in the final scene of fight club is probably one of the most perfect moments in movie history, "where is my mind" can be seen as a perfect metaphor for being lost in a lifestyle of consumerism and empty goals, an ocean of useless things... "way out in the water see it swimming..." That's my interpretation, and that'S what's great about music.
• Josh from Flint, MiThis song was also covered by M.I.A. in her song 20 dolla. Check it out.
• Cody from Grafton, OhThe james blunt cover of this is terrible =[Daaron Malakian of system of a down also did a rare cover of this, it was very good. ^.^
• Stephen from Baltimore, Md"Can anyone tell the placebo/pixies versions of this song apart?"The answer is simple Linus; the placebo cover is much clearer, that is you can actually hear the words pronounced. Also, the placebo cover leaves out some parts as well as the wooooo thing just doesn't fit
• Stephen from Baltimore, MdActually the the lyric is "coy koi", it tripped me up for a while till I was watching Fight Club with captions, luckily they had captions for the song as well.My personal interpretation of the song is this: The singer has gone insane and is describing a trip to the carribean.
• Bobby from Boston, Maoh, um, Seth depending on the situation it's perfectly fine to refer to (here i go again) the pixies as just that. unless i was "going to get pixies tickets". why don't you be "smart or something" before you try to school us.
• Bobby from Boston, Ma"koi koi"? break-dancing?
• Lexi from Lansing, KsJames Blunt version is NOT good at all.
• Garoud from Arica, Chilethe "talk to me koi koi" is refered to a type of carp,a fish, that in japanese is called koi."so many useless facts...until now!!"
• Echo from Normalville, Maand it's not about break dancing
• Echo from Normalville, Mavery beautiful, very eery song.
• Kara from Louisville, KySo the best part of this whole song is when he say :"talk to me koy koy"....nobody ever notices how funny that is
• Ema from Darwin, AustraliaJames blunt also did a cover.p.s FIGHTCLUB!!!