I have a soft spot in the hallow place in my chest where my heart should be for the 90's. This song has an even softer spot within that spot. A spot of ultimate softness, if you will.

I was watching one of those VH1 specials where they get a bunch of C-list pseudo-celebrities to talk about songs as if they have any idea what they are talking about---and these things just get sadder as time goes on, because you end up with people on the show talking about songs from an era they weren't even alive during---"borrowed nostalgia..." and all that---and some woman said this about "Cannonball": "One of the best songs about tantric sex ever."

Except that this song isn't about tantric sex. It's hardly about anything. Back in 1996 Kim Deal was interviewed by a Phoenix newspaper, the New Times, and she had this to say about "Cannonball"...

Kim Deal: I've just never connected music with books. Wait, that's not entirely true. "Cannonball" was inspired by the writings of Marquis de Sade.

New Times: What? "I'll be the bong in your reggae song" was inspired by Marquis de Sade?

KD: Well, not that line specifically. But the message of the song as a whole was making fun of Sade and his libertarian views that if he was better off than someone, then they were just fodder for him. Playthings. It was saying, "Come on, life's not a contest."

NT: So you're pretty much anti-Sade.

KD: Well, I don't know. Later on I found out he used to suck the snot out of people's noses, and I thought that pretty much ruled.

In all my experience of writing 0 songs so far, I have to say that I am getting the feeling that a lot of songwriting---the poetic Bob Dylan nonsense style of songwriting anyway---is finding a small nugget of inspiration and then utterly raping all of the potential ambiguous meanings out of it.

Yesterday I picked up a fuzzy little caterpillar on a leaf because he was in the parking lot and I didn't want him to get ran over. When I tried to pick up him up on the leaf I put the leaf under his head first, and instead of crawling on it he just started eating it so fast. I was like, "No no no little fuzzy caterpillar, this is your lift, not your dinner!" and swooped him up from behind and tossed him in the ivy. Then I got to thinking: what would a song from the perspective of that caterpillar sound like? How would you write it so that your common music listening prole doesn't know what it's being sung by a caterpillar?

I was lounging hungry on some hot pavement Then you came along and fed me Took it away & turned my world upside down With yr blonde hair and yr blue eyes And now I'm lost in the tall grass.

I won't go hungry and I'll never know who you were But I won't be lonely I'll just be wonderin' where you are

I am not a caterpillar, I ain't too good at holding things up But I've put you on a pedestal

Alright, now you guys take it from there. Also, figure out how to sing it. And put music to it. I'm sleepy.