Songfacts®:

• This is the lead single from EP1, a mini album recorded by the Pixies in Wales with Gil Norton. According to the liner notes, founder member Kim Deal was replaced on bass by Simon 'Ding' Archer, who has previously played with Frank Black, PJ Harvey and The Fall.
• Along with the 2013 single "Bagboy", EP1 was the first record released by Pixies without founding member Kim Deal, who'd quit earlier in the year. It was also, apart from the 2004 single "Bam Thwok," the first new material from the band in more than 20 years. This song is about the band's hope that audiences will accept their new work after such a long hiatus. Frank Black explained to The New York Times. "It's all about self-doubt," he said. "It says to the audience, I don't know if this romance has still got what it needs to happen again. I don't know if you'll accept me; I don't know if I accept you. But we have this memory. Can we do it again?"
• The lyrics are full of self-reflection. Frank Black explained to Mojo magazine that they are a preemptive examination of the band's position. "We were lovers once, but we committed suicide," he said. '"The washed-up crawl' – a self-mocking idea, imagining someone saying you're all washed up. Can the love be rekindled, can it all happen again? The sails are black – black is indie, you know what I mean? She's a goth chick or whatever. So, I'm beseeching someone – she still needs old Black Francis...."
• The Pixies have departed from the way in which most music occupies - a 4/4 time signature and then counts of two and four, or multiples thereof. This song grooves along on six-bar and seven-bar sequences, "It's not math rock," Francis told Mojo. "It's doing a dance with the listener, not pummelling them on the head."