Just after 1:30 a.m. PST, through a statement from their publicist and a tweet on their official Twitter account, The Pixies have released a new song and video for “Bagboy.” This is the first new song from the band in nine years since they released “Bam Thwok” in 2004 exclusively on iTunes. This news comes exactly two weeks from when the band broke the news that bassist and singer Kim Deal had left the band. The group’s lead singer/guitarist Frank Black (a.k.a. Black Francis) was just announced to be part of the collaborative project Thrifstore Masterpiece, and not three days ago, that project released their cover of Lee Hazlewood’s “Son of a Gun” with Black on vocals. As of press time we have not been able to confirm if Kim Deal is in fact on this song. It sounds like her singing “Bagboy” during the chorus, but we’ll update this post once we have confirmation from the band. Watch the full video right below.
There is also no word whether this is a one-off song, or if it signifies a full-length album on the horizon. Black Francis had this to say about the song in a statement, indicating the lyrics were written in a Starbucks in Harvard Square in Cambridge:
“The lyrics, coincidentally, were composed at a Starbucks Coffee in Harvard Square in Cambridge, about a hundred feet from where, 25 years ago, I composed some of the lyrics to an old Pixies song called ‘Break My Body.’ Twenty-five years later, some Starbucks in Harvard Square…I thought that was kind of interesting. The music for the song has been around for a few years. There are some demos I made with Joey and David a few years ago in Los Angeles, related to a film idea that still has yet to see the light of day, although work on the music continued. So a lot of the musical idea had been kicking around for awhile. It’s pretty simple, kind of a blues-based, two-note kind of thing, really.”
UPDATE: The publicist for the Pixies has confirmed to us that Kim Deal is not on the song. Joey Santiago and David Lovering provided the background vocals on the song and Jeremy Dubs bass on the track.
Additionally, if you want to download the song, you can download through the band’s web site using this widget: