I almost always keep my iPod on random play these days; I like to be surprised. Recently my little silver friend served up an excellent choice: "Hang Wire" from the Pixies' 1991 album Bossanova. Beyond the obvious reason that "Hang Wire" is only one letter away from being "Hang Fire" - a Stones' song from Tatto You - I felt that there were some interesting similirities and decided to write a post about them. (that accounts for the first 2/3 of the title of this post - the last "hang fire" is more of stretch).

Interestingly, I discovered that "Hang Wire" was actually inspired by "Hang Fire." Franck Black explained in an interview that he liked the Stones' song, but would need to alter the name for his own song; the lyrics followed from the choice of "wire" rather than "fire" ("Wind is whistling on the barbs") . The music is something else; a great example of the Pixies at their best - compact, intense (almost violent), and in perfect control.

Franck explained that the idea behind the lyrics was of a farm where fences were being put up. This is nothing like what we hear, though. "Wind is whistling on the barbs / You're head's a hammer" seems clearly a nod to surrealist imagery. My favorite line, however, is "If there were a fire / Can we scratch beneath this?" - sung with a desperate, thundering intensity. Nevermind that "can" should be "could" - that's for fancy-pants non-rocksinger types. Franck Black knows that "can" sounds better, and we don't care. Anyway, here is a video of a live performance of the song:

Now, for "Hang Fire." I have always loved this song; I think it exemplifies Mick Jagger's uncanny ability to step into someone else's shoes and write a song from that person's perspective. It's still fucking Mick Jagger (who will probably annoy the hell out of you in the next clip, especially when he kisses the poster of himself) but who else writes songs about that begin with "In the sweet old country where I come from / Nobody ever works / Yeah nothing gets done"? I don't know what country he is talking about or who this person is, but I want to go there and I want to hang out with this guy - who later shouts joyfully "have ten thousand dollars gonna have some fun / Put it all on at a hundred to one / Hang fire, hang fire."

The final question is: What the hell does "hang fire" mean? Online dictionaries I've consulted state that the expression means "to delay" and derives (like the phrase "flash in the pan") from the way old guns worked, when you had to pour your gunpowder in behind the lead ball. Apparently if the gunpowder was at all wet it would smolder rather than ignite, causing the shot to be delayed or simply burning itself out without firing. Somehow this worked its way into the English language and probably experienced its apex in Henry James' novels, where he used the phrase with a maddening frequency in his dialogs. E.g., in the Ambassadors, "Well, that was enough, Strether had felt while his answer hung fire. He had felt at the same time, however, that nothing could less become him than that it should hang fire too long." Good god!

Still, I can't say enough about the euphonious and delicate texture of James' prose - exhausting as it can be at times, I am a huge fan. I simply find it interesting to trace out this odd genealogy - from muzzle-loaders, to novels, and then on to the Stones and the Pixies.

Finally, an antidote to Mick Jagger's awful performance in the "Hang Fire" video. Here is Mick Jagger again, testing for a role in Warner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, followed by the actual scene, which is played by the godlike actor Klaus Kinski. I think the clip speaks for itself: