You know how it is, you’re on an overseas trip to the Caribbean with your university that your mum and dad have re-mortgaged to pay for, the teachers say you can go for a little snorkel because you’ve been on best behaviour and what should’ve been a lovely afternoon at the beach is turned into some nightmarish twist on Finding Nemo because a demented little fish that’s smaller than the size of your hand has taken umbrage at you having a paddle in its neighbourhood and is embarking on an aggressive campaign to get you back onto land.
This is the peculiar set of circumstances that gave birth to one of the most enduring alt-rock anthems of the late 80s. The besieged diver in question was a teenager by the name of Charles Thompson IV, later to reinvent himself as Black Francis, frontman of Boston grunge progenitors Pixies. When Thompson came up with a circular, four-chord riff on his acoustic not long into the band's existence, it was that dip in the ocean that he took on a trip as a student at the University Of Massachusetts that popped into his head, the pesky fish immortalised in the lines: “I was swimming in the Caribbean/Animals were hiding behind the rock/Except the little fish/Bump into me, swear he’s trying to talk to me.”
