Volcano Divers

Having recorded dozens of short, quirky songs on various devices over the past several years, I can attest that some songs start with little more than a bit of guitar strum that feels right and some nonsensical phrase that fits that music. Most times, it results in 30 seconds of tape kept in the hope that it will spark a real live song some day, but which is usually left as is, to be heard when an unmarked tape is pulled from a box and popped into the deck to satisfy curiosity.

And then there is Robert Pollard, whose odd fragments like that are good enough to stand on their own. Heck, for a few key years, that seemed to make up the bulk of his output, and no one complained.

"Volcano Divers" always struck me as that kind of song. He plucked out a little guitar figure, stumbled across a way to make an odd, underwater sound with his effects pedals and then sang the first thing that came to mind. Hearing how it sounded, he likely decided to finish it, such as it was, fleshing out the lyric just enough to call it a song. Oddly, for such a short song, he sings "You got a lot to say, but hey, don't say it. So much reported and so much distorted." A song about the beauty of brevity in a world of too much information? Well, of course, it would only include 25 words sung over the course of 79 seconds.

3rd World Birdwatching

The opening track on the Fast Japanese Spin Cycle EP, "3rd World Birdwatching," is an odd little song. Robert Pollard sings over limping left hand piano chords augmented by some occasional right-hand plinking. The lyrics are somewhat nonsensical, though they do include the EP's title, which, according to what comes after, is "the code for go." It's just one of many strange GBV openers; perhaps chosen in this case because nearly everything else on this disc is pretty straight-ahead pop glory and it was seen as necessary to keep listeners on their toes. The writing credit is a strange one, too, given to Pollard, his brother, Jim, and "manager for life" Pete Jamison (it's one of only two songs with a Jamison credit; the other is "Sinister Infrared Halo" from Suitcase 2).

Marchers in Orange

As happens with an artist as prolific as Robert Pollard, there are several occasions throughout his discography where the same song is offered on different recordings in very different forms. "Marchers in Orange" was one of the first of these, heard in very different forms on the Fast Japanese Spin Cycle EP and on the Vampire on Titus LP. The better of the two to my ears in the first because it rocks. Over churning guitars and busy drums, Pollard sings about the marchers in orange -- a daring thing do to, of course, as there's no rhyme for "orange," right? Not even for Uncle Bob -- as well as circuses for children in disguise and bones thrown to drug-sniffing dogs.

It's a futuristic, dystopian tale, though one that is abstract and somewhat hard to follow. Having just read Marc Woodworth's excellent book about Bee Thousand in the 33 1/3 series and found myself suddenly seeing all of the references to Pollard's battles against the establishment while working as an elementary school teacher found in the lyrics on that album, I can't help but wonder if "Marchers in Orange" isn't an early vent of similar frustrations. It's really only the reference to children that raises a flag, though a line about "protecting what we've come to know as ours" certainly has an us-vs.-them feel.

The other version of the song, with nearly identical lyrics, is built on an odd organ figure. It sounds like an old organ with separate keys that play whole chords, and it seems clear listening to the two versions back to back that this one could serve as a demo for the first. Here, Pollard sings over that lone organ, while on the FJSC version, the guitars mimic that organ's parts while drums and maybe a bass add accompaniment. This more minimalist version isn't bad -- it's much easier to pick out the words here -- but it lacks the drive that the lyrics seem to require.