Besides making countless Pixie fans jealous, the end result of this approach is that Black provides many details about the album, especially the lyrics. For years Black was somewhat evasive and argumentative when questions about his lyrics were asked; he would often maintain that the words meant nothing and just sounded good strung together. Even if that does hold true in some cases on Doolittle (“Silver” comes to mind), Black provides tons of details into the album’s major topics and even into the context of certain lines.

Through Sisario’s musical joyride with Black, Doolittle’s themes of violence, death, and the horizontal tango, as well as the twisted and dark sense of humor that rests just below the surface, are examined and discussed. Black talks about how the album’s songs were influenced by Surrealism (“slicing up eyeballs” from “Debaser”), the Old Testament (“Dead” and “Gouge Away”), and crazy former roommates (“Crackity Jones”), among other things. Black is clearly sincere when discussing the album; he’s not blowing smoke or BS’ing about the songs in 1960s Bob Dylan fashion. Sisario’s book is a great glimpse into how Black assimilated these various influences and reflected them in the album’s lyrics.

The book does have some minor flaws. Sisario sometimes dives deep into what even the most obsessive Pixies fan might consider boring minutiae; things like the number of beats per song or the fact that a song is in 4/4 time are interesting but probably unnecessary in creating a better understanding of either the band or the album. And when Black offers only cursory input for some songs (“I Bleed," for example), Sisario tends to fill in the blanks with shaky conclusions.

Regardless of these shortcomings, Sisario’s book offers numerous insights and revelations into both the Pixies and Doolittle. Pixies’ fans won’t be disappointed.