Jimmy

Robert Pollard could rarely be thought of as mellow, but his vocal on "Jimmy" can be described no other way. Pollard seems languid, almost subdued. It works, however, on one of the standouts of Elephant Jokes, an album that has definitely grown on me.

The song has a bit of "A Salty Salute" in its DNA, that slow chugging riff on one chord anchoring things from the outset. The vocal begins with Pollard very casually chanting "all right." Pollard's laconic vocal gives this a slight psychedelic edge, though it really feels like a sprightly pop confection pressed at 45 and played at 33 1/3.

Todd Tobias does some nice things with a (still subdued) shrieking guitar line to complement Pollard's rhythm guitar, giving the song its only real deviation from what could have been a Pollard demo.

The only drawback, and I write this mostly in jest, is the image conjured by the chorus. When Pollard sings of "Jimmy," one assumes he's talking about his brother. So, when he sings, "Jimmy get your love, Jimmy get your gun, Jimmy get your love gun, supersonic love gun," well, it seems a little creepy. It works very well from a musical standpoint, but Jimmy and his love gun would seem to be Jimmy's business, not Bob's. Close family, I guess.