“Theme From NARC”
by the Pixies (originally by NARC)
from the album Complete ‘B’ Sides
2001
Buy the album on Amazon

Every time this track shuffles up, I’m instantly transported back to high school.  My buddy Houston and I would spend a good portion of Friday afternoons playing video games at the local convenience store or Wal-Mart (our  pseudo arcades).  Between bags of Chili Cheese Fritos and cans of Cherry Coke we’d play whatever they had in stock that month.  Wal-Mart usually offered up far such as Double Dragon, Super Off-Road and our favorite co-op, Silkworm.  Minit Mart kept Bad Dudes, GI Joe, Bubble Bobble and NARC in the corner between the beef jerky and the fountain drinks for what seemed like years.  Which was just fine with us.  Particularly when the machines of the late 80s/early 90s put out such good theme songs:

The Pixies cut their cover of NARC for the b-side to “Dig for Fire” with Black Francis reportedly saying:

“Theme From NARC doesn’t really have a chorus. I thought it was pretty cool, because the chord progression in it is completely fucked up. It isn’t standard rock n roll progression.” –  Rock A My Soul fanzine #2

He’s right, it’s pretty bad-ass song, even if it was designed for an 8-bit world.

Pretty good karaoke song, from the stance that you only have to remember one phrase.

“Theme from Na-rc”