One of the most recognisable riffs of the ‘90s, “Peaches” was the third single from their self titled album. Chris Ballew said he wrote the track about a girl he desired, and inspiration struck when he was “sitting under a peach tree she had her in her yard.”

The band toured Australia for a reunion, and had an interview with Music Feeds and stated:

I picture this front yard, and I picture you being otherwise influenced by… Lucy in the sky with diamonds, yeah. For Peaches, if you just Google ‘Marxist interpretation of Peaches,’ up pops this treatus and somebody has, this has been the internet for years and years. It’s a full explanation of how “Peaches” is an accurate metaphor for socialism. Meanwhile it’s just a dude that’s kind of wasted… I don’t want to tell people what things are about, because their version is usually way better than my version.

The music video predictably features the band in a peach field, with peaches the focal point. It made it to number 29 on the US Hot 100 Charts, and was nominated for a Grammy in 1997 for “Best Pop Performance.” Ballow said of the nomination:

So what did it mean to me to be nominated for a Grammy? It didn’t mean much, frankly. I was too tired to respond. We were worked like little doggies. To win would have been extremely thrilling, of course, because we were there with all the pomp and circumstance. So that would have been an out-of-body experience. But I feel ok that we lost, because the first time we lost to Nirvana and the second time we lost to The Beatles.

Chris and Dave were interviewed about this song in the guitar book by Alfred:
Chris

I guess it combined folk music with Nirvana an AC/DC in a successful way. I liked songs that would almost be like a lullaby then shake you awake with an explosion back then. Nirvana was great at that, and this was a little attempt to get that feeling. It was written about a girl I had a crush on. I went to her house to tell her and waited all day but she never showed up. She lived in a bright yellow house in a gray industrial part of town, and she had a peach tree in the yard. I sat there all day with peaches falling and rotting and never got to see her. Dave came up with the end part because I didn’t have an ending. He really came through with a great part and we ended up with another great live song.

Q: How did you get the guitar sound at the very beginning?
A: Chris The melody is my bass with this vibro-effect that is built into my amp turned on.
Q: The change of time for the ending section is so different from the rest of the song. What inspired it?
A: Chris When I wrote it, it didn’t have an ending and Dave came up with that whole end part and we just tacked it on-It doesn’t sound strange to us at all. In fact, I just realized the other day that we have a song that does such a dramatic time change.
A: Dave Chris was out of town on tour with Beck in the spring of 1994. The verse and chorus of the song were done. Jason and I were practicing, just the two of us, and we were working on the verse and chorus sections. We agreed that the song needed an ending. I was listening to Neil Young at the time, particularly the album Ragged Glory, and I wrote that part on the spot going for a heavy, dissonant, chugging Neil sort of thing, along the lines of the song “Fuckin' Up.”