7 Strokes to Heaven's Edge

Too derivative? Too simple? Too poppy? Who knows why Robert Pollard decided to leave "7 Strokes to Heaven's Edge" off Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia? It's a good song, though admittedly it might not have fit very well on the album in question. In later days when people were clamoring for the right to release Guided by Voices music, this would surely have landed on a contemporaneous EP or single. But back in 1989, the band was releasing its own music to a largely indifferent public. The loss of those back was the gain of the band's fans as the century turned, as the floodgates came fully open and Pollard released a staggering amount of previously unheard music.

Few artists have four boxed sets; no one but Pollard has two full sets and a decent portion of the other two of nothing but previously unreleased music. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that each time he clears the closet, one assumes the well is running dry. Then, a couple of years later, he comes out with more. Such is the case here. He compiled the first Suitcase set in 2000, then still had enough good material left over for the Delicious Pie and Thank You For Calling disc on 2003's Hardcore UFOs box. Then came 2005, which saw the release of another Suitcase. Matador's outtakes are more uniformly solid than the self-released boxes, but all have plenty of gems.

As for this song, it's just Pollard and an acoustic guitar, joining himself to sing harmony on the chorus. It's a sweet song, straightforward musically, but a bit odd lyrically. It sounds as if the singer is angry, or at least disappointed, that he didn't die:

Mother, mother it's just not fair
We were so close to death
When the snakes were at your breast
We almost took the pledge
We were seven strokes from the cliffs of heaven's edge

Beyond that, Pollard offers a great line in one of the verses: "You want to know practical answers, learn something old everyday." He has referenced that one before, proud of the fact that he figured out that what people want to learn are established things, hence "old" rather than "new."