Pixies front man Black Francis weighs on Miley Cyrus’ post break-up tattoo

Miley Cyrus has added to her extensive collection of tattoos with the lyrics to an obscure Pixies song, after her shock break up with Liam Hemsworth. But what do the lyrics really mean?

The man who wrote the words for Miley Cyrus’s post break-up tattoo was weighed in on their meaning.

After her split from Aussie heart-throb Liam Hemsworth, the US pop star had inked on her bicep the words “my head was feeling scared, but my heart was feeling free”, taken from an obscure Pixies song, The Thing.

Charles Thompson, who fronts the indie rock legends under the name Black Francis, admits he’s not familiar with Cyrus’s songs — “I am not aware of her work, but I tend to not listen to mainstream pop music” — but paid tribute to the Slide Away singer for her interpretation of his often oblique lyrics.

Pixies frontman Black Francis, pictured far right with bandmates Joey Santiago, Paz Lenchantin and David Lovering, wrote the words of Miley Cyrus’s new tattoo.

The Thing, which was a B-side to the band’s 1990 single Velouria, is ostensibly about a man driving through the desert to meet aliens who have landed in Las Vegas, but its author credited Cyrus for extracting “some of the emotional feel of the music” in the wake of the breakdown of her short-lived marriage to Hemsworth.

“She may be a big pop star but it would seem to me that she’s not a passive music listener,” Thompson said, ahead the release tomorrow of the band’s new album Beneath the Eyrie and a tour next year.

“Hey, she likes the Pixies for one, and two, she seems to pay attention to the lyrics on a deeper level. So maybe I ought to listen to some Miley Cyrus records, maybe I have missed out on her.”

Miley Cyrus split from her longtime partner and husband of less than a year Liam Hemsworth. Picture: AFP

When the Pixies return to Australia in March to play songs from the new album, as well as their revered first two releases, the EP Come On Pilgrim and album Surfer Rosa in full, Thompson will likely be bringing with him a typically strange instrument.

The always unconventional front man recently had a four-stringed guitar custom made with one of his teeth embedded in it.

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“I think it’s cool,” he said. “But most people I show it to find it gross or weird.”

Beneath the Eyrie is out tomorrow.

The Pixies, Palais Theatre, March 9-10

Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane, March 12-13

Opera House Forecourt, March 14-15

Fremantle Arts Centre, March 17

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