Zoom (It Happens All Over The World)

According to a note by Robert Pollard confrere Rich Turiel on the Guided by Voices Database, "Zoom" began life as the song "White Skin and Bone," demoed during the Earthquake Glue era. While it was smart to keep the song off of that album where it would have been a very odd fit, Pollard's instincts proved to be even better when it came to finding a final home for the track. Turiel noted that it would probably surface on the Suitcase II boxed set. That would have been a mistake, for it would have buried one of Pollard's strongest post-GBV tracks amid 99 other songs of widely varying quality.

Instead, he wisely gave it its own release, issuing it as the key track on the titular Zoom EP. It was the first post-GBV solo release from Pollard, and this song in particular showed his songwriting skills were as sharp as ever. It's a throwback of a track, sounding like an early '60s folk pop chestnut. The song has a slightly swinging tempo and quiet instrumentation, the mid-fi recording giving it a sound not unlike something coming in on a transistor radio's AM dial.

Pain as it grows, where did you go, baby I don't know.
White skin and bone, love is all alone baby you should know.

Pollard strums guitar while his recently dismissed GBV bandmates Doug Gillard and Kevin March back him on bass and drums, respectively. The three offer backing vocals on the closing tag, singing "It happens all over the world" as Pollard sings about being abandoned by a lover, admitting that "Even the birds cry. Every part hurts, even my toes hurt." Now that's heartbreak, rarely rendered so sweetly.