“Bam Thwok” by The Pixies

"Bam Thwok" was the first thing the Pixies had put on tape since Trompe le Monde in 1991, and it came out in June 2004 with no disc at all, sold only as a download through the iTunes Store. Kim Deal wrote it and sings it, and it's pure Deal: a sweet, loping bass-driven tune that sounds like it wandered in from a sunnier band.

She first wrote it for Shrek 2, which passed on it, and the words took their cue from a child's art book she'd found thrown out on a New York City street. They're gleefully surreal nonsense in the band's grand tradition, with a simple message of goodwill toward everybody buried inside. It went straight in at number one on the very first UK Download Chart.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.