Lake of Sin

Album: NONSTOPEROTIK (2010)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the opening track from NONSTOPEROTIK, an album by American singer, songwriter and guitarist Black Francis, who is best known as the frontman of the influential alternative rock band Pixies. He has also recorded a number of solo albums under his other stage name of Frank Black. The album title gives a clue to the sexual content of many of the songs. Francis explained to Spinner UK that the record was inspired by his adolescent discovery of sexuality. "I don't know how it is for other people but I know that when I became pubescent, when the world of sexual imagination took hold of me, a lot of it was really abstract and strange," he revealed. "There was still like a basic sexual element to it, but all the sort of detail could get pretty psychedelic. When I think back on it now, when I was first sort of blossoming sexually, it was a lot weirder than it is now."
  • In this song, Francis sings about someone undressing behind ferns. Rolling Stone asked the erstwhile Pixies frontman the inspiration behind it. He explained: "When I was a kid, in second grade, 'fern' was a euphemism or code word for vagina. I don't know where that came form. I guess the record has some graphic sexual detail but it's only really referenced in a literal way; it's just me talking about ferns."

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