Carolyn's Fingers

The third track on Blue Bell Knoll is named for a friend called Carolyn, whose hands appear on the album cover. Over a drum-machine beat that Ned Raggett heard as driven by hip-hop, Fraser leaps between registers and rolls her Rs, a performance Alexis Petridis described as hearing her delight in what her voice can do. Ivo Watts-Russell called it absolutely beautiful, and Raggett thought it perhaps their strongest song since Aikea-Guinea.

Capitol issued it as a promotional single, the band's first in America, and it reached number two on Billboard's modern rock chart. The video, in the upload here, shows the three in split screen, Fraser in a white gown against a cloudy blue backdrop, with a reel-to-reel tape machine turning. It became a staple of the 1994 tour and was performed on Later... with Jools Holland that May.