The title to Kurt Vile’s sixth album, B’lieve I’m Goin Down…, reads like someone at their wits’ end. This is it, it’s all over now, you might think. But Vile’s 2015 single “Pretty Pimpin” uses humor to detail someone in the middle of losing themselves. He explains an identity crisis, kind of smirking at how he got to this point. He may be lost, but he looks pretty good, nonetheless. But who is the strange man in the mirror anyway?
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About “Pretty Pimpin”
Vile’s song describes the singer staring at himself in the mirror, wondering whose reflection he sees. For a moment, he recognizes himself, but he quickly forgets as he begins brushing his or “some stranger’s” teeth.
Then I proceeded to brush some stranger’s teeth
But they were my teeth, and I was weightless
Just quivering like some leaf
Come in the window of a restroom.
He speaks about himself in the third person, possibly referring to somebody he’s invented, hoping, wishing he could be. A lazy groove drives the track as Vile loses himself in thought while staring at this odd dude wearing his clothes. Still, Vile admits the guy in the mirror looks good: “Pretty pimpin.”
All he ever wanted was to be a man, but he was always
A little too cute to be admitted under marbles lost
He was always a thousand miles away
While still standing in front of your face.
“A Loner Record”
In 2015, Vile told Entertainment Weekly that B’lieve I’m Goin Down… is “definitely more of a loner record.” And the soliloquy in “Pretty Pimpin” reveals Vile’s anxieties. He glimpses multiple versions of himself, but which one is real?
Perhaps it’s a fear of growing up, getting old, and the pressure of how one must have it all figured out by such and such age. It’s also about growth and how you can feel at home away from your hometown.
A native of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, Vile also said he’s comfortable with the East Coast’s hard edges, which may seem at odds with his stoner image. However, when he travels to the other side of the country, he said, “I can tap into the more ethereal drifter thing.”
Feeling California
It explains the West Coast influence in Vile’s heartland rock. Vile co-founded The War On Drugs with Adam Granduciel in 2005. Then, following the release of the band’s debut album, Wagonwheel Blues, Vile left to focus on a solo career. For a musician, a solo career is its own kind of isolation.
The War On Drugs’ type of Americana often echoes Bruce Springsteen, staying close to its East Coast roots. But Vile’s music can be traced to the lo-fi indie rock of Pavement as well as Beck’s early slacker folk, which may explain the easy California vibe in his songs.
You could interpret “Pretty Pimpin” as the plight of someone who no longer cares. The slacker who has given up. Or it’s just a shrug at nervousness, knowing everything’s probably going to be okay, dude.
Photo by Harry Herd/Redferns
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