Prom is Coming
"Prom is Coming" is among many, many songs in Robert Pollard's back catalog that simply hold space between other songs. His largely atonal lyrics contain interesting images, but it tells no coherent story, and Pollard's acoustic guitar jabs convey no melody. It seems Pollard is trying to say something here, repeating the closing line of the lyric: "I will stay to help you prepare for what it was you said I could not afford to miss," but what it is is beyond me.
The song then, is really only remarkable for what came after, a decade after, to be precise. Rabid Pollard fans recognize the title as the name of the musician's new record label, Prom is Coming. It replaces the Fading Captain series that came to a close with the recent release of the Crickets two-disc best of.
The reuse of the song title is just the latest example of Pollard's re-appropriation of his own work. A perusal of song lyrics reveals band titles, album titles and Guided by Voices-related promotional efforts. It seems that Pollard, while endlessly able to come up with new ideas, doesn't like to part with a good one until it has done its full work. "Prom is Coming" obviously had more life than it spent as the title of a throwaway tune, so it was recycled. That will become a common theme here, one that I'm sure other uber-fans will help me to uncover as I work my way through his catalog.
The song then, is really only remarkable for what came after, a decade after, to be precise. Rabid Pollard fans recognize the title as the name of the musician's new record label, Prom is Coming. It replaces the Fading Captain series that came to a close with the recent release of the Crickets two-disc best of.
The reuse of the song title is just the latest example of Pollard's re-appropriation of his own work. A perusal of song lyrics reveals band titles, album titles and Guided by Voices-related promotional efforts. It seems that Pollard, while endlessly able to come up with new ideas, doesn't like to part with a good one until it has done its full work. "Prom is Coming" obviously had more life than it spent as the title of a throwaway tune, so it was recycled. That will become a common theme here, one that I'm sure other uber-fans will help me to uncover as I work my way through his catalog.
Labels: Not in My Airforce
posted by John at 7:41 PM
1 Comments:
I don't know if you'll see comments this far back, but I just discovered this blog...
Interestingly, Not In My Airforce was designed to end after Prom Is Coming (see the gbvdb entry). My recollection is that Pollard added the last six acoustic snippets after Matador wouldn't release it as a separate EP. On my music player I moved those six tracks to a separate play list, and the album becomes much stronger (one of my absolute favorites of Pollard).
Given its position ending his first solo record (following the epic Psychic Pilot Clocks Out) and its selection as his new record label name, I guess this song means more to Pollard than it does to most of his listeners (including me).
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