Pretty Bombs

"Pretty Bombs" is one of the rare Guided by Voices songs that actually has its title in the lyric, but it's also a very fitting title for the song, for it captures what happens musically very well. The first part anyway, for it is truly among the prettiest songs in the band's catalog. There are no "bombs" to speak of, though the dynamic shifts are certainly surprising in something less than a "shock and awe" sort of way.

The song begins with a typical chord progression, with bass, drums and Robert Pollard's vocal joining it a moment later, his first verse closing with "pretty bombs will sing you to sleep and you will dream of them." After half a minute, however, the music behind Pollard drops out, replaced by a swirling string quartet. That lasts just a couple of seconds, itself replaced by the guitar-bass-drums only to return a few seconds later. The band drives the song again for the next minute, Pollard's lyric coming to a close with, "Peeled in grace before the sunlight, stripped of face and so the morning."

At that point, about two minutes in, the song seems to stop. It's a false ending, however, as the string quartet comes in, playing for 30 seconds, joined by a quiet guitar plucking single notes. The band kicks in again then, joining the strings to take the song to its close, that quiet guitar line recast as a solo that subtly dominates the proceedings as the song fades. It's a configuration that works well with this song, and one that makes me wish Pollard would dip his toe into orch-pop a bit more often.