Cryptic, oddly ambiguous lyrics are the rule. “Beautiful Way” seems to express concern for a friend while “Peaches & Cream” urges, “Keep your lamplight trimmed and burning.”
Beck’s bizarre, nonsensical stream of consciousness flows into some stagnant pools. On “Debra” he propositions a store clerk, saying he wants to have sex with her and her sister, concluding, “Ain’t no use in wastin’ time getting to know each other . . . ’cause you got the thing I just got to get with.” “Milk & Honey” prattles about wet dreams, Buddha and roofies. Erotic fragments also refer to a ménage à trois (“Peaches & Cream”), sadomasochistic sex (“Sexx Laws”), hookers (“Pressure Zone”), incest (“Get Real Paid”), lesbianism (“Mixed Bizness”) and twisted fantasies involving public gratification (“Hollywood Freaks”). Beck’s sexual assault begins and ends with suggestive CD cover art.
A critic once referred to Beck’s music as “whacked out street poetry.” Midnite Vultures wanders off the street and into the gutter, reflecting one salacious scavenger’s preoccupation with sexual perversion. Beck recently told Rolling Stone that his final album of the millennium would be “a party record with dumb sounds, dumb songs and dumb lyrics.” It appears he hit the bull’s-eye.
