What is a ‘Debaser’, according to Pixies frontman Black Francis?
‘Debaser’ is the colourful, gleefully graphic opener to Doolittle, arguably the best album produced by Boston punk-revivalists Pixies. The song’s iconic bass peels and the bright, jangly guitars that immediately follow do little to prepare us for the chaos about to ensue, during which lead singer Black Francis howls cheerfully about “slicing up eyeballs”.
He got his idea for the song from the “movie” he sings about. Luis Buñuel’s 1929 short film Un Chien Andalou features a horrifying scene in which it appears someone’s eyeball is being sliced open. In fact, it’s the eyeball of a dead calf, which Buñuel had bleached to make it appear human. Francis became obsessed with the film, which was co-written by Salvador Dalí, and wanted everyone to know about it – as his lyrics suggest.
From discussing Buñuel’s movie in the song’s only verse lyrics, however, Francis moves on to tell us what he wants to be when he grows up: a “debaser”. It’s never made explicitly clear what the link is between Un Chien Andalou and this obscure profession.
It’s easy to imagine that a debaser is someone with a specific interest in grisly acts like eyeball-slicing. Francis juxtaposes this image with the innocent idea of a child wanting to be something when they grow up. This clash of sentiments is reinforced by how at odds the cheerful abandon of the music is with the lyrical themes at hand, typifying the band’s wicked sense of humour.
But what does the word “debaser” actually mean?
According to Francis, the song’s title was “an attempt to introduce a new word into the lexicon”. He told the Guardian in 2022 that its meaning is exactly what it sounds like: “one who debases. A debaser.” That is to say, someone who lowers the moral or aesthetic value of something.
Buñuel’s movie was intended to shock and horrify artistic elites in France, where it was produced, subverting the aesthetic and moral standards to which motion pictures were held at the time. The filmmaker later commented in his notes on the film that he was railing against the “artistic sensibility and to the reason of the spectator”. This statement of intent could easily describe the entire raison d’etre of Pixies.
The band’s discography is piled high with lyrics and sounds designed to shock and transgress the bounds of what was generally accepted in the world of music. Francis felt such an affinity with Buñuel’s work for this reason.
The only problem is that the word he came up with to describe someone like Buñuel or himself hasn’t quite caught on beyond the original context of the song it entitles. “I don’t think it’s been successful,” Francis commented on his aim of having “debaser” added to the English dictionary. “I would have heard about it.”
Perhaps more importantly, though, the song itself has more than caught on. David Bowie famously covered it with his band The Tin Machine, and Nirvana overtly drew inspiration from it for their single ‘Lithium’, and for Kurt Novaselic’s bassline in particular. Maybe they wanted to go up to be debasers, too.
