Stephen Malkmus and Matt Sweeney on the Lyrics That Changed Their Lives

Words Matter is an interview series where songwriters whose work means a lot to us talk about the lyrics that mean a lot to them—the ones that helped shape their style, made them jealous, or left them awestruck.

From the moment Matt Sweeney heard the first line on Pavement’s 1992 debut album, Slanted & Enchanted, he was hooked: When Stephen Malkmus sang, “Ice, baby,” on “Summer Babe (Winter Version),” before launching into an absurdist tale of longing that involves finger eating and a “protein delta strip,” Sweeney knew he was listening to a kindred spirit. “I immediately caught the reference to Vanilla Ice’s ‘Ice Ice Baby,’ and then it was immediately flipped into something else,” Sweeney recalls via video, sitting in his New York City apartment. “It jumped out at me at the time. That’s a great fucking opening line.” Malkmus, who’s calling in from his car somewhere between Chicago and Indiana, chuckles at the memory of his nod to the bygone white rapper.

More than 30 years after that initial connection was sparked, the pair of indie vets are now bandmates in the Hard Quartet alongside guitarist Emmett Kelly of the Cairo Gang and Dirty Three drummer Jim White. The group’s freewheeling self-titled album is also stuffed with references, though they read as more sincere than Malkmus’ Vanilla Ice callout. It’s in the way Sweeney harkened back to the vocal melodies of Big Star’s “Thirteen” on “Rio’s Song,” or how the band recreated the Rolling Stones’ “Waiting on a Friend” video for that song’s visual. It’s in Malkmus’ sidelong lyrical nod to disco stars Sister Sledge on “Chrome Mess,” and how Sweeney cribbed from Motörhead and Blue Öyster Cult on the poignant “Killed by Death.” 

“With really cool songs and lyrics, it’s like you’re already friends with the band,” Sweeney says. “It’s like these guys are speaking to you, and all of a sudden you’re a gang.”

With his deadpan affect and ear for tartly funny lyrics, Malkmus, 58, is one of the most distinctive songwriters of his era, and has remained sharp and off-kilter three decades on from his most famous band’s heyday. Though he’s best known for his prickly wit, The Hard Quartet songs like “Hey” and “Six Deaf Rats” include some of the most moving lyrics he’s ever written. He starts the former by softly singing, “Hey, someone likes you/They’re into your illusion”—a line both lulling and knowing, heady and wise. “Generally, I like to have a first line, and then I just riff off that,” he says, explaining his improvisatory process in a shrugging tone. “I work on lines that fit a little bit better, or I’m like, Ooh, that slaps, or whatever. But I don’t overthink it too much.”

Sweeney, 55, is one of the most in-demand guitarists in music. In addition to leading the hard-charging ’90s band Chavez, he’s worked with songwriting greats like Johnny Cash, Cat Power, and Will Oldham. He’s an ardent student of rock, and that deep education comes through on the four tracks he sang and wrote the lyrics for on The Hard Quartet. “It can take me a long time to find words that don’t seem stupid and resonate with me,” he says. “I often try to write things that hit me the way that lyrics hit me when I was a kid—just lines that work.”

Talking about the songs and lyrics that made an outsized impact on them, both Malkmus and Sweeney looked back to their formative years. Malkmus picked acid-tongued tracks he first heard as a teenage punk in Northern California; Sweeney reminisced about lyrics that once terrified him or completely turned his head around. They dropped plenty of references throughout the interview, too—breadcrumbs for the gang of followers eagerly anticipating the Hard Quartet’s upcoming spring tour.

Stephen Malkmus’ Picks:

Flipper: “Life” (1982)

Malkmus: In the early ’80s, I was in the hardcore scene in Stockton, and Flipper were from San Francisco and totally different. They were kind of like trolls, and that totally appealed to me. They were the older guys that were junkie vibes sorta, just smelling like fucking cigarettes all the time. They had a fucking sick logo. I was into their singles. “Ha Ha Ha” was this unbelievable song. “Sex Bomb.” They were my guys. 

Then the yellow album, Generic Flipper, came out, and “Life” just boils it down. Lyrics that are worth talking about are ones where you feel the singer is testifying, telling you what’s up. “Life” is totally just one line over and over again—“Life is the only thing worth living for”—but the dude just sets it up and goes for it. It’s deeply sarcastic; it’s like it doesn’t even matter if it’s a good life. They have a lot of songs about life. And “life” is a word I like to sing, too. There’s a song on Slanted & Enchanted, [sings] “I got one holy life to live.” There’s the hard L, and the word just means so many things. Life is death, too. It’s a good word. [laughs]

In relation to my own songwriting, you really feel that [Flipper singer Will Shatter] wasn’t working it out too hard word-to-word. “I... too... have sung death’s praises.” It sounds like what came out in rehearsal. Did he even write this down? I doubt it. I bet there’s never pen to paper. That’s cool.

There was also this weight to Flipper’s attitude that was closer to the Sex Pistols or the Stooges. I could have put the Sex Pistols song “Bodies” on this list, but I’ve heard Ian MacKaye talk about it, so I didn’t really want to. But that is the most disgusting, scary song. It’s like [in an extremely accurate Johnny Rotten snarl]: Abortion! She don’t want a baby that looks like that! I’m not an animal. I was just like, What the fuck is going on in here? This is scary shit. This is worse than heavy metal—or whatever I thought was supposed to be tough. This is, like, really tough.

Gang of Four: “I Found That Essence Rare” (1979)

Malkmus: I like how it has a chorus that is barely related to the narrative of the other parts of the song—in a good way. In the first verse, he just had the idea of the Bikini Atoll, which is an island where they did some nuclear tests, and there’s a bikini that women wear, and he just riffed on that in a political way. [laughs] The super catchy chorus doesn’t really relate to that: “I found that essence rare.” You just have this thing that is so golden and good-sounding you can just do that chorus, and then go back to the other story that barely holds together. I do that a lot, and I just think it’s great. I don’t think it’s lazy.

If you have a distinctive perspective as a band or a songwriter, it helps to make those more abstract connections make sense.

Malkmus: It definitely does. It’s very common to not even think about what you’re singing when you’re a fan. When he sings, “I found that essence rare, it’s what I looked for,” you’re not thinking, Oh, that’s what he’s really looking for! You’re just singing it. It’s catchy as fuck, flows off the tongue, the right choice. Mission accomplished.

What a band. They were so great. I forgot to think about Gang of Four for a couple of years, and then my daughter was playing them on her radio show. She’s a DJ at KSPC in Los Angeles, and she was really vibing on it. I was like, Fuck, man, that band meant so much to me.

No Trend: “Teen Love” (1983)

This pick is a deadpan, post-punk song about a couple of popular high school kids—who are eventually crushed and decapitated in a car crash. It’s an extremely dark and funny critique of the era’s mainstream culture that still feels relevant today.

Malkmus: I’m surprised this isn’t an iconic song in a certain way. Maybe it’s too harsh. In the mid-’80s, there was a specific scene of really politically correct bands in D.C., and No Trend were the snotty, tongue-in-cheek kids from suburban Maryland.

Sweeney: They were absolutely dive bombing the politically correct kids. No Trend were so good at being themselves. They made everybody feel stupid. [laughs] They were not trying to be liked. They were like, Fuck you.

Malkmus: “Teen Love” is a “hate the straights” song, too. In the hardcore times, we would get our asses kicked by sports dudes and Chads, as it were. People would literally pull over if they saw a punk on a skateboard on a Saturday night in Stockton—four of them would get out and kick your ass. So we were pissed and sometimes wanted a little fantasy revenge on those guys, because they made our life hell.

It’s definitely from a particular era. Even when I see hardcore videos now, they don’t feel so vituperative and anti. It’s like when you would go see the Fall, you would be like, This guy has bad vibes, he doesn’t like me, and he thinks I’m a loser—but I’m still gonna copy him. I don’t see that as much anymore. It’s like all the bands are forced to beg now. [laughs]

Stephen, you’re a pretty beloved figure at this point—does that annoy you at all?

Malkmus: No way. For all that shit, I still wouldn’t want to be taking strays from people, or if it got back to me that there’s people saying I’m a dipshit or I don’t tip well enough or whatever, just this internet world. If people are like, “I met that guy, he’s a fucking dick,” that shit hurts. I’ve had people come to me with preconceptions occasionally, and it was no fun. Not like I needed a bodyguard or anything, but still, it’s just like, Dude, you don’t even know me. You want to have a clean record if you can, unfortunately. [laughs]

Maybe another reason why [being a big-headed rocker] doesn’t completely work now is that musicians get more rapid feedback, and sometimes it can be beneficial. In the ’80s, some musicians made these bloated albums that just them and their seven friends thought were brilliant. But now people are instantly like: “You’re old and you suck,” or, “Your jams are flaccid”—and it can help! I’m not saying [the Rolling Stones’ 2024 album] Hackney Diamonds is a genius record or anything. [laughs] But I bet Robert Plant’s new music is better because of the internet. 

Sweeney: Because it’s keeping him in check? 

Malkmus: Yeah, or he’s listening to younger artists. I mean, Robert Plant seems to be genuinely interested, and he’s a fan of bands like Low—unlike Eric Clapton, who just says he likes the newest guitarist, and then his records sound awful.

Matt Sweeney’s Picks:

Shirley Collins: “The Cruel Mother” (1959)

Sweeney: My parents were into public-domain jams, and when I was around 4 years old, my mom would sing this old English folk song to me. My mom’s got a good voice, so at first I remember thinking, Oh this is great. Then I heard what she was saying and was horrified.

This is the scariest fucking song I’ve ever heard. A woman kills her babies with a penknife, and then she’s out walking and sees her kids—they’re back—and they say, “You killed us and you’re gonna pay for it.” And she asks, “What’s gonna happen to me?” Then it’s like, “For seven years you’ll wait in hell.” It’s so fucking crazy. The point of view keeps on changing. Sometimes the narrator jumps in. You don’t know who’s talking. It’s a really fucked up song.

What kind of woman sings that to her kid? My mother! She’d sing it to me to terrify me for fun. She had a dark sense of humor. By the end I would be screaming at her to stop.

The Kinks: “Lola” (1970)

Given how we’re currently going backward in America in terms of accepting gender fluidity, it’s wild to think that this song about a guy falling for someone who “walked like a woman but talked like a man” was so huge more than 50 years ago.

Sweeney: It was on the radio all the fucking time! Little kids in my New Jersey hometown were singing it. If you were trying to start a rock band, “Lola” was one of the ones that you would play. It’s absolutely part of the classic rock canon. In the mid ’60s, when the Kinks were coming up, they were among the first guys with an androgynous, long-haired vibe that was really groovy.

It’s another story song, and I understood it right away. He was telling me exactly what was going on. There’s no shading. And he talks about how he feels weird about being attracted to Lola, but then he feels OK about it. It just struck me, like, Whoa. 

I listened to the album this is from, Lola vs. Powerman and the Money Underground, Part One, a lot as a senior in high school, and I’ve been listening to it again lately. It’s a full-blown concept record about what it is to be in a band. And then, inside of the concept, they write a song that shouldn’t be a hit but is, and that’s “Lola.” It’s so fucking insane how sure-footed that record is.

Malkmus: Ray Davies was like, I can beat Pete Townshend. I can do better than “Pinball Wizard”—or whatever the fuck it is—Tommy.

Butthole Surfers: “The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave” (1984)

Sweeney: That title, and line, is fucking epic. I heard this song as a teenager in New Jersey and I was like, Wait, you’re allowed to say that? I listened to it right when that record, Live PCPPEP, came out in 1984, and it just blew my fucking mind. “There’s a time to shit and a time for God.” Oh my God! It was clear he was just saying a bunch of dumb, crazy stuff, but it struck me as very true. It’s totally destructive but yet totally something you could understand and relate to on a really deep level.

This song is the type of thing that appealed to a sarcastic-kid sense of humor, somebody who grew up on Mad magazine. In the years before I heard this, I also had a little Dungeons and Dragons, earnest, pre-sexual vibe of being into Rush lyrics and thinking that stuff like Rush was cool. I still think Rush is sweet, but hearing the Butthole Surfers really turned my head around. I was like, This is really where it’s at.

Below you’ll find convenient playlists with Malkmus and Sweeney’s picks for the lyrics that changed their lives—including a few choices that we didn’t get to in the interview—for paying subscribers only. Your support makes it possible for us to keep going, thanks!