Songfacts®:

• This song is about an interracial relationship between a black male and white female.
• This is the only song on Surfer Rosa not entirely written by frontman Frank Black; he co-wrote it with Pixies bass player Kim Deal, who was using the stage name Mrs. John Murphy at the time. Deal, who sang lead on the track, took inspiration from a 1986 Bruce Beresford movie, Crimes Of The Heart. In the film, Sissy Spacek plays a married woman who falls in love with a black teenager.
• What exactly is "gigantic" in this song is up for debate. Kim Deal has said that it is purely innocent, telling Sounds in 1988 that there was no phallic imagery intended. "My personality came out," she said. "I'm fresh and clean!"
• In the October 1997 issue of Select magazine, Black Francis said of this song: "A good chord progression, very Lou Reed influenced. I'd had the word 'Gigantic' in my mind just because the chord progression seemed very big to me."
• This was played as the closing number for many years at the Pixies reunion shows.
• Apple used this song in their iPhone ad campaign "Powerful," which demonstrates how the consumer has "the power to create, shape, and share" their life when they acquire the device.
• The song made a big impression on Kurt Cobain. He said in 1992, "I wish Kim was allowed to write more songs for the Pixies, because 'Gigantic' is the best Pixies song and Kim wrote it."
  
  Kim Deal reacted modestly to NME, "Well, it's better than somebody saying, 'Oh God, you suck.'"
• Aware that Kim Deal was seeking more creative input, Frank Black set her a challenge using a circular chord sequence he'd developed. "We started doing a bit of their loud quiet loud dynamic, where we would bring things down to bass and drums, the kind of thing you'd hear on a Sisters of Mercy song," he recalled to Uncut. "I wanted to do a song that didn't change chords, like Lou Reed's Sweet Jane. So I just said to Kim, let's do a song called 'Gigantic,' this is the bass riff, quiet in the verses loud in the choruses."
• "Gigantic" started with a riff Black Francis brought over to Kim Deal's apartment in Charlestown. He had an idea for something "gigantic" and thought Deal should sing it. She agreed, then went away and wrote the lyrics.
  
  Deal told Uncut that what amuses her about the song is how little music it actually contains. The entire thing is built around one riff, repeated over and over in a similar vein to "Sweet Jane" by the Velvet Underground played backwards.
  
  "I wrote this whole song on one riff," Deal explained. "I didn't know I was doing it, but I think it's funny. Good job."