Doolittle (album) - Packaging and Title

Packaging and Title

Doolittle was the first album where Simon Larbalestier, the Pixies' cover photographer, and Vaughan Oliver, the band's cover artist, had access to the lyrics. According to Larbalestier, this "made a fundamental difference." The availability of the lyrics allowed the art and photographs to be more closely tied to the content of the album; the cover references the themes in "Monkey Gone to Heaven", and depicts a stuffed monkey, with a halo and the numbers five, six and seven around it.

The surrealist and abstract images throughout the album booklet are linked to the album's content. "Gouge Away" is represented by a picture of a spoon containing hair, laid across a woman's torso; a direct pictorial representation of heroin, with the spoon and the hair being horses. "I Bleed" is referenced with the image "As Loud As Hell"; the image shows "a ringing bell," with a set of teeth; this references the line "it shakes my teeth." "Walking with the Crustaceans" is a visual representation of "Wave of Mutilation"'s lyrics. Larbalestier later commented that he was interested in "early Surrealist stuff" at this time.

During the recording sessions, Whore was discarded as a potential album title, after Oliver changed the cover artwork idea to a monkey and halo cover. Francis later explained his rationale for the move:

Francis then named the album Doolittle, from the "Mr. Grieves" lyric "Pray for a man in the middle / One that talks like Doolittle." This was in the tradition of previous Pixies albums; both Come On Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa used song lyrics for the album title.