Cyclops

Given Robert Pollard's tendency to write about real people, it's possible there is someone named Tom in his past who hurt his eye and had to wear an eye patch. Then again, he is just as likely to have seen someone with an eye patch and spun the rest from his imagination. Either way, "Cyclops" is a short, strange song with some clever lines.

Beginning with some mournful guitar from Pollard, joined by a martial drum beat from Kevin Fennell, the song is all set up for what is either the most sympathetic song in Pollard's catalog or the most dryly humorous.

The lyrics, in total:

Tom the happy pretender
One eye on the mend
One eye on his watch
His parents told him
Don't worry, Tom,
there's plenty of jobs in the big city,
but with one eye only
it gets so hard
No depth perception
Cyclops

Those last two lines are as close as we come to a chorus, repeated over and over as the song fades. There's not much here, really, but the lines "one eye on the mend, one eye on his watch" make it all worthwhile.