“Monkey Gone To Heaven” by The Pixies

The Pixies cut "Monkey Gone to Heaven" in November 1988 during the Doolittle sessions, and it came out as a single in March 1989, a month before the album, where it sits seventh. The band had signed with Elektra at the end of 1988, so this was their first American release and their first on a major label, and they made it count.

Black Francis wrote it and sings it, with Kim Deal's voice alongside his, and his lyrics tangle environmental dread with biblical numerology, the same knotty obsessions that run through Doolittle. Deal's bass and Dave Lovering's drums keep it rolling at a deceptively easy lope, Francis and Joey Santiago bend their electric guitars around it, and then Francis's voice tears loose into a full-throated scream. It was also the first Pixies song with guest players: cellists Arthur Fiacco and Ann Rorich and violinists Karen Karlsrud and Corine Metter, whose strings give the song an eerie, churchy chill.

Gil Norton produced and engineered and Steve Haigler mixed. Critics took to it right away, with Rolling Stone's David Fricke hearing it as a meditation on God and garbage, and music publications have kept piling on the honors since.

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