“We thought no one would play it”: Kim Deal always doubted The Breeders song ‘Cannonball’
It’s sometimes a wonder how artists can get by being either so humble or self-deprecating when, quite often, a little bit of self-belief or encouragement would go a long way.
When an artist releases an undeniable hit yet has absolutely no belief that it can be massively successful, you have to wonder just what it is that they’re seeing differently from you and the rest of the world. There’s something so immediate about ‘Cannonball’ by The Breeders that you have to ask why Kim Deal, of all people, never saw its success coming.
The band’s debut album, Pod, which they released in 1990, was created at a time when The Breeders were still simply a side project for all of the members, with Deal still an active member of Pixies and guitarist Tanya Donnelly playing with Throwing Muses. As a result, the album was seen as nothing more than this, and while there were definite signs that they would be able to function as a successful band in their own right, it wouldn’t be until their second album, Last Splash, in 1993, that they would begin to gain traction behind the project, with it having become Deal’s primary outlet by that point.
Last Splash takes everything Pod did and refines it in a way that instantly appears to come across as more punchy and direct than their debut. The immediacy and strength of tracks such as ‘Divine Hammer’ and the aforementioned ‘Cannonball’, along with the far more experimental and sonically ambitious nature of the rest of the album, saw The Breeders gain a level of critical and commercial adulation that they hadn’t received prior to that.
‘Cannonball’ brought them a number of accolades that not even Pixies could lay claim to during their initial run as a group. The song reached a peak of number 44 on the Billboard Hot 100, something that Deal had never achieved with her previous band, and it was considered one of the very best songs of 1993 by much of the music press.
However, despite ‘Cannonball’ being such a roaring success and just how obvious its success appeared to be, Deal was very taken aback by how popular it became and how it was known outside of the alternative rock niches that they normally operated within as a group. She had absolutely no inkling that the song would take off in such a manner and continues to be surprised by just how much notoriety they gained from it.
During an interview with Mojo 20 years after the song’s original release, Deal was asked whether she ever envisaged it being a hit for the group, and her response was indicative of just how little faith she had in the song becoming their most well-known song. “Did we record a song that opened with me saying, ‘Check 1-2,’ and then loads of vocal feedback from my brother’s harmonica mike, and think, ‘This is destined for radio?’” she asked. “That was the sort of thing that didn’t get you played on the radio then. We thought no one would play it.”
Of course, it was played almost everywhere and has since become the song that is synonymous with The Breeders’ name. They clearly relish the fact that it did have such a fruitful life of its own, continuing to perform it at live shows today, but they were evidently staggered by the fact that the stylistic choices they used on the song allowed it to create such an impact. Vocal feedback and harmonica mics aside, the secret to its success, much like all popular songs, is that it’s just really bloody good.
