The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
Our man Abu squeezes off twenty tracer rounds
And that's when she jumps the turnstile
And as she clings to the roof of the speeding train
The Double A down to Sheridan Square
Her cell phone rings
It's, like, her stupid father
Be in the door by ten, again
Pixeleen
Dream deep my three-times perfect ultrateen
Pixeleen
Born in the bogs of Jersey
Trained how to love and spy hard
Dropped on the streets of Roppongi
Soaked through on the floor of a noodle shop
And when Abu rams the clip in the mini-Glock
Up on the catwalk inside the warehouse
You whip a knife from the top of your go-go boot
With just a flash of spectacular thigh
Your pager starts to throb
It's your as-if boyfriend Randall
Better keep it real, or whatever
Pixeleen
Rave on my sleek and soulful cyberqueen
Pixeleen
Penned by a hack in the Palisades
Backed by some guys from Columbia
Shot all in digital video
For a million and change
Flashback to cool summer nights
Freddy can we cut to the chase?
In the room above your garage
Everything about me is different
Symmetrical and clean
This is what I see
Just a girl in girlie trouble
Dancing in the video with gun and tambourine
Pixeleen
Be good my three-times perfect ultrateen
Pixeleen
Born on the floor of a noodle shop
Dropped in the bogs of Jersey
Shot by a guy from Columbia
Soaked through all in digital video
Girl with the sweet backstory
Pitched in a trailer in Burbank
Cast by a cool enough yes man
Screened at a festival in Utah
And that's when she jumps the turnstile
And as she clings to the roof of the speeding train
The Double A down to Sheridan Square
Her cell phone rings
It's, like, her stupid father
Be in the door by ten, again
Pixeleen
Dream deep my three-times perfect ultrateen
Pixeleen
Born in the bogs of Jersey
Trained how to love and spy hard
Dropped on the streets of Roppongi
Soaked through on the floor of a noodle shop
And when Abu rams the clip in the mini-Glock
Up on the catwalk inside the warehouse
You whip a knife from the top of your go-go boot
With just a flash of spectacular thigh
Your pager starts to throb
It's your as-if boyfriend Randall
Better keep it real, or whatever
Pixeleen
Rave on my sleek and soulful cyberqueen
Pixeleen
Penned by a hack in the Palisades
Backed by some guys from Columbia
Shot all in digital video
For a million and change
Flashback to cool summer nights
Freddy can we cut to the chase?
In the room above your garage
Everything about me is different
Symmetrical and clean
This is what I see
Just a girl in girlie trouble
Dancing in the video with gun and tambourine
Pixeleen
Be good my three-times perfect ultrateen
Pixeleen
Born on the floor of a noodle shop
Dropped in the bogs of Jersey
Shot by a guy from Columbia
Soaked through all in digital video
Girl with the sweet backstory
Pitched in a trailer in Burbank
Cast by a cool enough yes man
Screened at a festival in Utah
Lyrics submitted by blackiswhite
Pixeleen Lyrics as written by Walter Carl Becker Donald Fagen
Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
Light Up The Sky
Van Halen
Van Halen
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Became my favorite song of the two post-reunion albums. To me, this is reminiscent in perspective to Haitian Divorce, with a cinematic/script-like feel to the writing.
The first verse/chorus combo details the germination of this character. This is open for interpretation, but I can imagine that Pixeleen is the idea of a 16 year old female artist who's imagined herself as a teenage action hero. Her father wonders what she's drawing while at dinner and she explains her idea. He laughs it off, she gets mad and tosses her work on the floor of the "noodle shop."
So later a budding screenwriter happens upon this sketch when he goes to pick up his dinner. He takes this idea, comes up with his own storyline, and pitches it to a studio as a potential feature film. These older men take the innocent idea and inject "sexiness" into her character, in order to sell on the big screen.
In the bridge, the boundary between reality and fiction dissolves, as the character herself speaks to this "hack." She laments that she used to have character, but that she's been sterilized by people who want her to make them money instead of having true meaning. A film critic who has seen a private screening then pans it for that exact reason.
The final chorus condenses the entire chronology into 8 lines, in the wonderfully-sardonic fashion we've come to expect from Fagen and Becker.
There are two things for me that stand out about this song: First, the vocals of Carolyn Leonhart, and second, the understated grand piano by Bill Charlap.