Just Say the Word

When Robert Pollard has long instrumental passages in songs, they usually offer some sort of moody scene setting or a bit of wacky experimentation.

With "Just Say the Word," that's not the case. The song is built on a severely strummed electric guitar and what sounds like a 1980s-era Casiotone drum beat. This goes on for half a minute before Pollard begins singing, and for nearly a minute after he is done. It doesn't do much differently at any point than it does at the outset, and it's never joined by another element. The only variation in the entire song is his double-tracked vocal on part of the second verse and a sort of bridge that serves, in the absence of a real one, as the chorus.

On the screen, that doesn't seem very appealing, and it certainly isn't the kind of pop nugget that earned Pollard his reputation as a songsmith. But there is a sort of insistent appeal to the track. Too often, eager to get to the towering tune that is "Subspace Biographies," I skip through this track to get to the next one. Spending time with it now, I'm drawn to it, impressed with what Pollard can do with such spartan elements.