Liquid Indian

The way Robert Pollard writes songs, coming up with a snippet here and a snippet there, often fusing things together to come up with a whole, it’s no surprise that many Guided by Voices songs feel different from verse to chorus and back. It occasionally feels forced, but in the case of “Liquid Indian” from Do the Collapse, it works.

Do the Collapse is far and away the band’s most controversial disc. Die-hards hate Ric Ocasek’s slick production, critics decried what they saw as a sprawling lack of focus and the marketplace ignored what was an obvious attempt to join the big leagues. I find it flawed but full of fantastic songs. Sometimes these songs fight against Ocasek’s sheen, at others they march in lockstep to achieve sonic brilliance simply beyond the grasp of Tobin Sprout’s four-track.

“Liquid Indian” is a fine example. So, in this song we have a strange, herky-jerky verse that even by Pollard standards feels like random lines pulled from a notebook: “Arcane offices delivering deluxe information: The Quaker's Seal of Approval. More movies less Trivial Pursuit.” But it also includes some of Pollard’s most arresting imagery, with his “born-again boot-stomping witch humper” leading the pack.

And that’s all before that gorgeously manufactured chorus, which wrings as much melody, harmony and soaring verve as can be found in the two words of the title. It’s a swirling mass of Pollard atop Pollard atop Pollard, all meshed with a swell of keyboards. As if that’s not enough, Pollard even adds some completely uncharacteristic “waa woo hoos” to the mix at the tail end of each chorus. That all drops away as it re-enters the verse, the sweeping keyboards replaced by Doug Gillard’s echoing, stabbing guitar notes. These sound like parts from two different songs, but Pollard and Ocasek do a good job of fusing the two, each verse building musically toward that chorus. The result is a pure studio creation -- the band only played it live eight times just after the release of the album before retiring it for good.

So, what is “Liquid Indian”? It’s easy to assume it’s some sort of alcohol or potion, particularly given the witch reference and the intros to each chorus. At the close of the first verse, Pollard sings that “the skips and flips are taking sips of…” while in the second he sings that “we've coupons and stamps and valuable cramps from…” It turns out, however (and perhaps everyone else already knew this), that Liquid Indian is a type of ink. Pollard often comes up with words and phrases that he uses out of context simply because they sound good, and this would seem to be a case of the practice.