Butthole Surfers: Pepper Meaning

Song Released: 1996

Pepper Lyrics

Markie got with Saron
Sharon got Sherri
She was sharing Sharon's outlook on the topic of disease
Mikey had a facial scar and Bobby was a racist
They were all in love with dying
They were doing it in Texas
Tommy played piano like a kid out...

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   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Nov 12th 2011 !⃝

   Well, very good theories, but if you research the Surfers, you would find that Gibby Haynes wrote Pepper about his high school class. All those people are real. I couldn't find anything about their names, so they might be pseudonyms, but Pepper is based on real people from Haynes high school class that were injured or killed in Dallas.

2. 2TOP RATED

   #2 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   May 4th 2012 !⃝

   I went to high school with Gibby, and I knew the people in the song. He didn't use pseudonyms.

3. 3TOP RATED

   #3 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Mar 24th 2012 !⃝

   They mention the people that "fall in love with life and drink it from a fountain that is falling like an avalanche, coming down a mountain. Then it notes that some of them were in love with dying. The do end up mentioning the fountain several times again. I think its that the people who are in love with life and drink it from the fountain are the people who end up actually surviving death. For instance loosing a leg while dancing with a train, and getting shot in the leg when he should have gotten shot in the head. Then there are the other people that end up dying by accident, like a nasty virus and the rapist. While these people are all drinking either life or death from a fountain (metaphorically) because they are obsessed with life and death, this guy is just obsessed with the girl, who he breaths in and smells everywhere.
4. anonymous

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   Aug 30th 2022 !⃝

   I always took this song to be about people who live life dangerously in general. They live life to the fullest (Drinking it like an avalanche pouring down a mountain) All of these people partake in risky behaviors; playing on train tracks, getting shot, having risky sex (Sharing outlooks on the topic of disease, catching a nasty virus possibly AIDS), getting into arguments/fights. "You never know just how you look through other peoples eyes" meaning that the behaviors listed might be perfectly normal to these people but completely crazy in other's opinions.
5. anonymous

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   May 23rd 2022 !⃝

   The fountain like an avalanche falling down the mountain most likely was a reference to the billboard with a mountain and actual fountain on it that was located near Baby Does restaurant in Dallas. High school and college kids used to go up there late at night to party. Look up some of the things that happened there.
   Also football player rapists were pretty much a thing at ever Texan high school and college at the time.
6. anonymous

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   Nov 2nd 2021 !⃝

   As weird or cringy as this may sound I think this song is a valid interpretation of life and possibly it's meaning. It is mentioned in the song that "some will fall in love with life and drink it from a fountain that is pouring like an avalanche coming down the mountain", the simile here is life being a deadly inevitability for anyone in its path, and some just embrace it. The sun I believe is also a metahore for the bright side of life, the images of which would be "cinnamon and sugary and softly spoken" but in the end nothing more then a lie. This is a bit of a stretch but maybe they embraced the sun, and that's why he "can taste you on my lips and smell you in my clothes". This gets louder every time he comes back to this part perhaps signifying his commitment to this, an unsure whisper to start off but ending in his screaming it.
   
   He lives his dull life, he sees the misfortune of people dying or getting hurt and it always comes back to this idea that he's gradually worming up to, and who can be blamed for falling for those lies of the bright side of life when the reality is so dull and full of misfortune.
   
   The last thing I'll mention is the changing line in the song "you never know just how TO look through other people's eyes" sure enough this was sang during the first "unsure" verse about the bright side of life. This line sounds very naive to try and look through someone's eyes when you know that you will never know how to. Later in the song this changes to "you never know just how YOU look though other peoples eyes" I would argue that this signifies a change from thinking about others, from trying to put yourself in their shoes, to simply just caring about how you look and who you are to them. A much more down to earth way of living, focusing on yourself and not the bigger picture.
   
   In conclusion, life is deadly and misfortune is all around us. Embrace the lies of the bright side side of life and focus on yourself first before others. But never forget what life truely is and how it treats other people.
   
7. anonymous

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   Jun 23rd 2021 !⃝

   I believe the football player rapist might be a reference to Wesley Wayne Miller who was convicted of rape/murder of Retha Stratton. She was a cheerleader and he was a defensive football player at Castleberry High in River Oaks (Ft Worth, TX) I’m not certain that’s who it is but it follows suit. Not sure exactly where Gibby Haynes went to high school though. I have no idea who the others in the song could be either.
8. anonymous

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   Oct 9th 2020 !⃝

   It's about death and how some fight it and some embrace it we use to listen to this on deployment and it meant to us no matter what you embrace death always wins
9. anonymous

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   Oct 21st 2019 !⃝

   Someone told me a long time ago that they thought the song was about the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas.
10. anonymous

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    Sep 15th 2019 !⃝

    This song is clearly a metaphor for the angst and fear everyone faced in the 70's and 80's living under the perpetual possibility of nuclear annihilation. But really, I think this is a song that Gibby Haynes wrote about some folks he knew where he grew up in Dallas, Texas. I don't think there is any hidden message. I think it's very literal and very honest.
11. anonymous

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    Mar 20th 2018 !⃝

    I think, it's probably about heroin
    ... but It depicts colorados, Mile high methamphetamine epidemic of the 90s, when we were the #1state for that drug. Describs it pretty well, because the druglords were literatly being it down the mountain if you think about it, and how many documentaries on busts report the all porn and sexual behavior all the meth kids were exposed too? Needles are used in meth junkies and often spread hepititas C, deaths, rapes,burgurlaries and murders are all associated with any drug problem so could be general.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
12. anonymous

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    Dec 2nd 2013 !⃝

    Everyone is either in love with dyin or fall in love with life you can live on the edge and you see and loose so much but when you find something or someone " I can taste you on my lips and smell you in my clothes" that will make you see life for what it is it's a game you can be taken out any moment some will die young some will live to grow old but I think the chorus is to take the focus off the game of death and life just like falling in love would
13. anonymous

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    Jul 16th 2012 !⃝

    While the song was about his high school class, when he says "fall in love with life and drink it from a fountain that is falling like an avalanche, coming down a mountain." I feel like hes saying that in high school, its easy to get caught up with drama and details and material things.
14. anonymous

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    Apr 19th 2011 !⃝

    I thought it sounded like a song just reminicing and observing the diversity of people and how many different people you meet throughout you'r life and the steriotypes people put on all of us and reminds me of how we sometimes take the fist thing we see or hear about a person and lable them until maybe one day we fall in love and let most of the bulls*it kinda take the backseat and don't let it bother us anymore.

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15. holnrob

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    Dec 1st 2010 !⃝

    He was living life with on the edge until he met a special girl (i don't mind the sun sometimes the images they show i can taste you on my lips and smell you on my clothes) and then he doesn't want to live on the edge anymore. Must've happened in Texas though lol.

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16. GrungyJohnn

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    Jan 23rd 2009 !⃝

    Considering that the Butthole Surfers are a psychadelic rock/punk rock band, I would be tempted to say that this, as with most of their songs is the story of a trip they had, or at least includes things they thought of or said when they were not thinking about this world. For me, the tone of this song suggests that maybe this was a peyote trip? The wind whistling through the first verse and so on puts me on a hill out in the badlands of perhaps new mexico, or some southern state, looking at the sun setting. Consider the line "I don't mind the sun sometimes, the image that it shows". A mirage perhaps? Also, it may just be a story that they came up with. Who knows, save those who wrote it.
    
    ~JD~

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway

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