Songfacts®:

• Pixies frontman Frank Black wrote this song with the group's bass player, Paz Lenchantin, who replaced Kim Deal six years earlier. The lyric is based on tales of witches, specifically one called Donna, who gets her name from the deadly herb belladonna. In the song, Donna kills the singer with a potion made from the poisonous plant - this is not the Stevie Nicks Bella Donna, but a dark and malevolent creature.
• Frank Black describes this as a "goth" lyric, complete with references to "the witching hour," the "poisonous forest," and of course, the graveyard.
• This was released as the first single from the Pixies seventh album, Beneath The Eyrie, which was produced by Tom Dalgety.
• The song's music video was conceived and directed by Kii Arens (Devo's "What We Do," Queens of the Stone Age's "The Vampyre of Time and Memory") with Bobbi Rich. It was shot in Los Angeles.