The song's lyrics display a surrealistic and nonsensical nature typical of the band; Deal's inspiration was a discarded child's art book she found on a New York City street.

[1] As the band was announcing dates for their reunion world tour, DreamWorks contacted manager Ken Goes to enquire whether they would be interested in recording a song for the title sequence of Shrek 2.

The band agreed, and frontman Black Francis and Deal began composing riffs for a song aimed at children.

After, in the words of Deal, "working it up a bit in Joe's [Santiago] Pro Tools thing,"[2] "Bam Thwok" was recorded in a DreamWorks-funded demo session.

Francis later said the recording session "was very relaxed, a nice way to break the ice," and admitted that "it didn't feel like twelve years had passed."

[1] The lyrics are typically surreal and offbeat; Deal's main inspiration for the song and its title was a discarded art book she found on a New York City street while on tour in the late 1990s.

"[10] In a press release from Apple, Pixies manager Ken Goes said: "By distributing our first song in 13 years exclusively on iTunes, we were able to quickly and inexpensively make it available to millions of fans in the US and Europe.

One week after its release, we are thrilled at the response from iTunes users that have helped to make "Bam Thwok" a top seller across four countries.