Jamie Stewart, the center of Xiu Xiu's rotating lineup, is a terrific wonder, with his broken lyrical narration and his emotional fucking catastrophe. With terrified wonder, this song seems to require repeated listenings. Sparse hand drums hold the strumming of an acoustic guitar in a safe place, but then Stewart's wavering falsetto comes stumbling, the voice of a child who has just had a nightmare. If we were his parents, we'd sit up, fumble for the lights and look for our glasses, and we'd show true concern, for our son's voice is perverse and spoiled with hurt. He'd ignore our invitation to sleep between us and opt to sit in the middle of the floor, out of our arms reach, though wanting to be held. He'd tell us that he'd dreamt that he was dead, dead and killed by the man he loved, a bodybuilder with the most beautiful biceps in the world. His tear-slicked face would light for a moment, showing the face of the boy we know, at the description of the dream lover's thighs and arms, all tanned and taught. He'd disappear again into the lip quivering stutters at the retelling of how this man, in a spasm of passion and disgust, broke our son's neck at the point of sexual climax. After a few shutters and sobs he'd whimper that the last thing that he remembers before waking up is the man putting an urn of ashes underneath his workout bench, and the story will stop there: our little boy rocking into a sob on our bedroom floorboards, alone in his parents' presence. Stunned, we'll try to reassure him that it was only a dream, that it'll be better in the morning and that these things don't happen in the real world. Stewart will look at us through wet eyes with pity, as though we haven't understood a word he's said. He'll go back to his room shaking his head. It is not a song that has its questions in how it ends, like the two selections prior to it, but in how it began. Where do kids come up with this shit? We'll lie in our bed, but sleep won't come, our thoughts filled with the night terrors of a child.