She Saw the Shadow

One of Robert Pollard's strengths is to recognize when he has come up with a melody that needs little adornment. Some songs cry out for a great guitar riff or other flourishes to emphasize the hook. But other songs, like "She Saw the Shadow," can get by with little more than the hint of backing music to float the strong vocal. The first half of the song is just Pollard strumming a guitar under a double-tracked vocal. It's a straightforward lyric that could be carried a capella if Pollard wished, a spooky little tale:

I was making a wish
And a witch was watching me
How did I know she was there?
I was invisible, impossible
Only observable to children
But I felt her glare
She saw the shadow nothing in the dark

The drums and bass of Jim McPherson and Greg Demos kick in at this point, giving the song some oomph, but the hook remains Pollard's lyric, and that's more than enough.

Kickboxer Lightning

Aside from being a great song title, "Kickboxer Lightning" sounds like some sort of superhero name, or maybe an American Gladiator. Robert Pollard brings that notion down to Earth very quickly, however, opening the song by singing the name over a roaring garage quartet blast, followed by this: "Kid bites the big one though, he lives behind me." Suddenly we're dealing not with a superhero, but the kid who lives behind you who probably clothespins a towel to his shirt and pretends its a cape. Perhaps he's one of those annoying kids who is seemingly everywhere, ignoring the personal space delineated by a property line: "Don't you want him in your head?" Pollard sings.

If that's the premise, the story goes off the rails a bit as the song progresses, but musically it never flags, delivering a tight 3:30 of rock. It's another example on this surprisingly meaty EP that a power trio is perfectly capable of delivering Pollard's best, even when Pollard himself is behind the guitar rather than one of his more-talented compadres.

Aeriel

"Aeriel" seems like a strange little solo instrumental for much of its running time, with Robert Pollard strumming a heavily echoing guitar, almost seeming to hit upon a chord structure as he bangs away experimenting with the effects pedal. Then, two minutes into this three-minute song, he begins to sing. "Aeriel, I, I took two of these. Offered to take away where it has always gone." It's a drug reference that gives the sluggish, disorienting music some context. Strangely, however, the drums and bass of Jim McPherson and Greg Demos, respectively, kick in during that opening line, giving the song a drive it lacked up to that point. It's as if Pollard wants to emphasize the line. His protagonist may be in a drug haze, but this is important to get across. It isn't clear what the protagonist's relationship is to Aeriel, though it seems co-dependent in the very least: "Leading you, leading all the way. Offered to do my work, now it is always done." At the song's close, I wonder if the song isn't a suicide note of sorts, as he shifts the dosage in the final three words: "Aerial, I, I took all of these," uttering the last line as the last guitar chord is strummed.

Bally Hoo

Two things set this nice little tune apart from the others on the Soft Rock Renegades' disc Choreographed Man of War. For starters, the music echoes that of disc-opener "I Drove a Tank." That song's mighty hook is slowed down here, easing into the song unsuspectingly. In that song Robert Pollard sings:

I drove a tank in a running war
I didn't know what the shit was for
You brought me out from your old chest drawer
So baby hold on

Here, at about half speed, it becomes:

So now you know what the deal is for
You'll never know who to break it to
I'm really out there, but I like the view
So baby hold on

And the second thing? Pollard gives a shout out to fellow Ohio popsters The Mice, a band that put out a couple of records in the 1980s before splitting. "Going to see The Mice play some rock n' roll. It's going to be real nice," he sings.

The Mice are one of those undiscovered gems that people like to keep as their own. Their music runs the gamut from short bursts of poppy punk to rustic, lo-fi folk (sound like anyone else you know?), and leader Bill Fox headed in that latter direction on his two wonderful, 1998 solo albums. Every once in a while the band and/or Fox threaten to pop up onto the radar. Scat Records (home to Guided by Voices' Vampire on Titus and Bee Thousand LPs) reissued the entire Mice discography a few years back on Almost Forever Scooter, while the Believer in its 2007 music issue featured a great first-person piece by a big fan of Fox's who tried in vain to track down the reclusive singer in Dayton.

All of this inhabits a catchy little song buried at the end of a one-off LP from one of Pollard's many side projects. One wishes Fox was as prolific as Pollard; at least the few songs he did record might be discovered thanks to a timely shout out from a peer.

I Drove a Tank

Time for some wild speculation. Given the timing of the release of Choreographed Men of War and the things that were going on in Robert Pollard's life around that time, I'm guessing that "I Drove a Tank" has something to do with his crumbling marriage. The disc came out in late summer 2001, a few months after Isolation Drills, his acknowledged divorce album.

After half a minute of random noise, perhaps something meant to approximate military radio static, the riff kicks in and doesn't let up for about two minutes. This time out Pollard is joined by a group he dubs his Soft Rock Renegades, with Greg Demos on bass and Jim Macpherson on drums. This little power trio powers through this simple song with an oxymoronic pummeling grace. It's a simple song with Pollard playing rhythm guitar and Demos handling the leads while Macpherson bashes away behind them.

Lyrically, Pollard comes out of the gate quick, spitting out the lines "I drove a tank in a running war, I didn't know what the shit was for. You brought me out from your old chest drawer, so baby hold on." From there he sings about roaming the seven seas, which would seem to be a fairly direct reference to the manic tour schedule Guided by Voices kept at its peak, something that would run counter to someone at home who wanted to keep Pollard close at hand in an "old chest drawer." He then comes home, but isn't happy. "Never go to this awful town, I get it on when it gets me down." Perhaps all of this is because his ex could be around every next corner, which leads to the last lines of the song: "I'll never know when you'll come around, that's why I drive a tank, yeah," shifting from the past tense of the intro to the present tense. He's no longer leading the charge in his own war (as the general of GBV, perhaps?), but instead has steeled himself for the war at home.

Then again, knowing Pollard, he probably saw something about tanks on the History Channel and then wrote a catchy little song about it.