This song is typical Pixies in the sense that it's completely unpredictable and utterly incomprehensible. Running just 2:06 with wildly shifting volume throughout, it contains one of lead singer Frank Black's stream-of-consciousness lyrics that presents a stream of images designed to support the music. Who is "Mr. Grieves"? A character pulled from his imagination. But it rhymes with "I believe."

A rather aggressive song, this one would have fit well on the previous Pixies album. "Coming up with it was like going back to our older, harder punky style," drummer David Lovering told MusicRadar. "It was a nod back to our club days where we had to go kind of all-out. To me, it almost sounds like it could have been on Surfer Rosa."

Pixies got their album titles from song lyrics, and this track provided the title for Doolittle ("Pray for a man in the middle, one that talks like Dolittle").

This line is a reference to Dr. Dolittle (spelled with an extra "o"), a character in a series of books and movies that talks to animals.