Set in Los Angeles in the 1930s, Mildred Pierce is the story of a middle-class housewife's attempt to maintain her and her family's social position during the Great Depression. Frustrated by her unemployed husband, and worried by their dwindling finances, Mildred separates from him and sets out to support herself and her children on her own.
Although it shares the name with James M. Cain's tragic novel (turned into a film starring Joan Crawford), the track off of Sonic Youth's major label debut Goo has nothing in common with it. It's an almost entirely instrumental track, save for Thruston Moore declaring the name of the song in the beginning. Oh, and the end.
Not too long, the song sort of drags through concert style echoed guitars and fuzzy bass. Then comes the last 30 seconds. I want to remind you that this was the major label debut of the indie rock godfathers. A big record company trusted the band enough to widely distribute an album with Mildred Pierce on it. Maybe he didn't know, maybe the band snuck it onto the album, but it doesn't seem possible that audiences were clamoring for the finale of Mildred Pierce.
After the repetitive bass and guitars comes a pure psycho freakout of screaming instruments and Thurston shrieking his head off. It's almost as if it's serving as a message to those who think joining a major label is selling out. Even under the umbrella of a big corporation, you can stil perform acts of extreme discomfort.
Also the video includes Sofia Coppola doing a decent Joan Crawford impression and which means the best acting Sofia Coppola has ever done is for a 2 minute Sonic Youth music video.
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