2000 Great Songs #1358: Teenage Pin Queen

Eleventh Dream Day's 1989 album Beet is loaded with great pre-grunge overdriven-guitar indie rock, and while there are more straightforward tunes, I've always found "Teenage Pin Queen" absolutely magnetic. It's partially a spoken-word narration, partially a frenetic rocker, a short story or indie film about a night at the bowling alley, some nowhere truck-stop town in the Southwest, where the titular character eats her cheese fries and flirts with strangers; no resolution, just a slow, lonely fade into another dark night. Unexpectedly big drama from a small song.

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