Pink Cellphone

Album: Saturday Night Wrist (2006)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Pink Cellphone" starts with an interesting metaphysical thesis and descends into a stream of profanity that has divided Deftones fans since the song's first appearance on the band's fifth studio album, Saturday Night Wrist, in 2006.

    The song starts with a provocative breakdown of mainstream religion which, the song claims, attempts (and fails) to block direct personal experience of the mystical ("belief in the one true power can't stop the sound"). It lays blame for all sorts of problems at the foot of such fraudulent faith.

    So your trouble continues to multiply
    And to grow as a direct result of you being misguided
    Deceived, misdirected or fooled
    All of these are variations of the basic ego gloried live theme
    In which you follow the gospel truth


    One may agree or disagree with the assertion, but it is at least stated in an intelligible and thought-provoking way. That all changes at around 3:38 when the "forever and ever one nation under b---------g" stuff takes over. From there, the song becomes a parody of itself, a long line of profanity that doesn't seem to serve much purpose. In a 2016 Spin interview, Deftones frontman and primary lyricist Chino Moreno validated the impression that nothing deeper lay behind the "Pink Cellphone" vulgarity: "I remember when it first came out, people were like, 'What the f--k is this?' And that's the reaction I wanted; I wanted people either to really not understand it or just be like, 'Why would you do that?' And why not? Especially because, like I said, I felt like that record was such a Frankensteined-together mess. Why not just take it one step further?"
  • Annie Hardy of the indie rock group Giant Drag does vocals on this track. Her participation wasn't planned. She'd been hanging out in the studio and Moreno decided to get her involved. Deftones were all in a bad place during the recording of Saturday Night Wrist, but Moreno especially had reached his limits and was seriously considering quitting. His frustration comes out throughout the album, as does his penchant for seeking collaboration with outside artists when he needs inspiration. He's gone to this playbook before with "Passenger" and Mein, where he paired with other musicians to jar loose his writer's block.
  • Moreno was Deftones' chief lyricist, but the whole band participated in songwriting. Generally they would start with Moreno building around riffs created by lead guitarist Stephen Carpenter, but everyone ultimately contributed to the final songs. According to Carpenter, however, "Pink Cellphone" was a Moreno idea from start to finish and not one that anyone else gave much input to.
  • Hot-carling I turned that into a verb

    A "hot Carl" is a very crass term that we'd rather not explain her. Look it up on Urban Dictionary if you want the details.
  • Deftones later digitally released a clean version of "Pink Cellphone." At 3:54, it's about 90 seconds shorter than the unclean version.

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