39 Steps

Apparently, the songs on Bigger Trouble (originally issued in a more abbreviated form on limited-edition vinyl as Big Trouble) were improvised on the spot in a store called MC Video, the band obviously inspired by the racks of VHS boxes surrounding them. In this case, the Alfred Hitchcock film "The 39 Steps" spawned an odd song that begins with Mitch Mitchell's slowly descending bass line and Robert Pollard singing, somewhat tentatively, "I walk in I see you. I touch you, I feel you, you touch me." Mitch quickens the pace a bit and Pollard picks up on it, with more confidence now singing "I want you, you want me" as the things are driven into a steady, rocking 4/4 beat with the bar band strums of Tobin Sprout's guitar and Larry Kellar's drums. It's anybody's guess if Pollard's largely unintelligible vocals have anything to do with Hitchcock's tale of an innocent man wrapped up in counterespionage and intrigue.

The band does pick up on Pollard's chant of "39 steps," filling in behind his vocal as the song comes to a close. By the time they settle into a groove and get to that point, one might be forgiven for thinking some thought actually went into the song's creation. It's a lo-fi creation that, if it was ever more fully explored, might have yielded something useful. As it is, it's the sound of friends jamming in front of a boombox, given a public airing because of the appeal of everything else they did subsequent to that jam session.