My Top 1000 Songs #560: Divine Hammer

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

The second single off the Breeders' 1993 landmark Last Splash, and one of those songs that always takes me back to a very specific moment in my life--late summer '93, living in San Francisco, cranking the record up in my Noe Valley place, the sound dissipating into the high-vaulted ceiling of the frigid, drafty old Victorian. "Cannonball" is the better-remembered song these days, but it was so ubiquitous, and remains so, that it doesn't have that same specific association for me. "Divine Hammer" is a lighter track, on the lean side lyrically, closer to jangly dream pop, almost too ethereal--it's weird, no matter how much I turn the volume knob, it just never seems to get loud enough (even the official videos below are barely audible)--but for those of us who had a crush on Kim Deal's sensuous croon since the early days of the Pixies, "Divine Hammer" feels like taking a warm, immersive bath in twin Deal vocals. Aaaaahhhh!

Official video #1 (too quiet):

Official video #2 (also too quiet):

Live 1993:

Live, 30(!) years later: