The Lodger Carried a Gun

Robert Pollard's music in the late 1980s was decidedly different from what it would be just a few years later. It was much more conventional, but still had the hallmarks we associate most with his work, hooks being most prominent among them.

He was also prolific, though he hadn't figured out how to get all of that music out to his fanbase at that point (nor, really, had he figured out how to have a fanbase). A song like "The Lodger Carried a Gun" proves the point. It's a solid song from the Devil Between My Toes/Sandbox era that sounds like it never made it past the four-track demo phase.

It begins with an acoustic guitar strum the likes of which launched a million songs by thousands of college bands. Pollard creates a nice vocal melody that offers the main hook. It stumbles a bit on the chorus, which functions here more like a bridge. Pollard's vocal is flat, and he clearly hasn't figured out the best way to drive the song forward. Had it made it past the demo stage, he likely would have fixed those issues.

As it is, however, it's still a decent track, one that offers further evidence of Pollard's early prowess.