Pixies – Gouge Away

Gouge away
You can gouge away
Stay all day
If you want to

Missy aggravation
Some sacred questions
You stroke my locks
Some marijuana
If you got some

Gouge away
You can gouge away
Stay all day
If you want to

Sleeping on your bed
You break my arms
You spoon my eyes
Been rubbing a bad charm
With holy fingers

Gouge away
You can gouge away
Stay all day
If you want to

Chained to the pillars
A three day party
I break the walls
And kill us all
With holy fingers

Gouge away
You can gouge away
Stay all day
If you want to


Lyrics submitted by riffic, edited by reolonezz

"Gouge Away" as written by Charles Thompson

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

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Gouge Away song meanings
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61 Comments

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  • +25
    General Commentthe song is very enigmatic, but I suspect it refers to the biblical story of Samson, who had his eyes gouged out by his enemies, and eventually killed them all when he was chained to two pillars in their stronghold: he pulled the pillars down, bringing the building down and killing himself and his enemies.

    The secret of his strength was his hair: as long as it remained uncut he was stronger than ay other man. He was betrayed by Delilah the woman he loved, who shaved his head and handed him over to his enemies, but when his hair grew back he pulled the house down on them as described above. This explains the lyrics about "missy aggravation" (Delilah, who got the secret of his hair out of him by annoying him) and the reference to stroking his locks (of hair)

    Many of the Pixies early songs had references to old testament stories in them. Black Francis was just into the weirdness and violence of the old testament apparently...
    zoton July 19, 2002   Link
  • +5
    General CommentZot's on the money with everything.

    "missy aggravation
    some sacred questions
    you stroke my locks
    some marijuana
    if you got some "

    although they probably didn't smoke weed back then, Frank Black was trying to say that Delihah got the hair secret out of him by giving him drugs along with having sex with him and bothering him.
    lactosefreemanon December 24, 2004   Link
  • +3
    General Commentthis is the first Pixies song i heard and one of the best. Doolittle is such a great album
    thereisnoiinteamon December 29, 2004   Link
  • +3
    General CommentThe bible stuff's a given but i think there's other things in there . Gouge is allso slang for injecting heroin and what do most junkies cook their heroin on ? A: a spoon , allso , people are allways banging on about how marijuana is a gateway drug to other harder drugs like heroin . I think this song is Frank Black talking about a relationship with someone (doesn't have to be a lover ) that allso involved drugs and using the story of sampson as a metaphor for how the situation made him feel and maybe how he dealt with it . Junkies do tend to stay all day once they've had a fix .
    jonwaron November 26, 2011   Link
  • +2
    General Commentyeah, black francis was very interested in Old Testament stories. 'Dead' is based on King David and Bathsheba
    gouge_awayon April 17, 2004   Link
  • +2
    General Commentsome marijuana
    if you got some

    What exactly does this mean? Does it have anything to do with the testament?
    DuTcHoVeNon September 23, 2004   Link
  • +2
    General CommentTo me this song is about being treated badly and giving up fighting back and just taking it (Gouge away, stay all day if you want to) I think the marijuana part is saying "got any marijuana to make it easier to take all this pain your inflicting upon me?" The last verse is really triumphant and uplifting to me...I love this song, one of the best Pixies songs
    Debaser!on September 25, 2004   Link
  • +2
    General CommentWe know that Frank Black and bassist Kim Deal had a rocky relationship. They were at each other's throats from the early days of the band. Kim always pushed to contribute more to the music. Frank wanted complete artistic control.

    So, in Gouge Away, Frank casts himself as Samson and Kim as Delilah. Her "gouging" clouds his artistic vision. She "cuts his locks," undermining his power to take the band in the direction he wants it to go. He says in this song, "OK, keep on gouging away, Kim, day by by, hour by hour. But you know what? At some point not long from now, I'll rise up and bring this whole temple crashing the ground, killing us all." In other words, he is threatening to break up the band.

    Is this the "correct" interpretation? I don't know. But thinking of the song this way make it the very best Pixies song for me.
    Hippocampon April 03, 2016   Link
    • 1 Reply
  • +1
    General Commentbut what about

    "you break my arms"
    "you spoon my eyes"

    i get the whole samson thing but just not in those 2 lines.
    Levitator89on January 02, 2005   Link
    • 1 Reply
  • +1
    General CommentThe Pixies make me want to read the Bible, it seems so cool...

    Yes, that was quite blasphemous.
    SUPPERimpostoron August 25, 2006   Link

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