Mobile

Robert Pollard has aped the Who many times over the years, but his most overt lyrical reference comes in a song that bears no musical resemblance to the mod heroes.

"Mobile" quotes from "Goin' Mobile" from the Who's Who's Next LP. It begins with a lo-fi guitar and some foot tapping that sounds like it was recorded on a boombox. In the background at the song's outset, Pollard seems to be muttering a few F-bombs. Then he starts to sing, or rather, yell:

"I'm going mobile, I'm on the road now, now watch my feet move, go go!"

That's pretty much it. At one point he mentions going "from street to street now," but lyrically, that's all we get. There's nothing much to the song; it's not catchy, the lyric does nothing but stir desire to hear Pete Townshend's vastly superior take on the concept.

Scalding Creek

Originally slated for the aborted Back to Saturn X LP, "Scalding Creek" instead showed up on one of Guided by Voices' most-challenging '93-'94 EPs, Get Out of My Stations. The song leads off that 7" (and the reissued CD EP that came nine years later). It's a lo-fi tune based around one strummed guitar and Pollard's double-tracked vocals. It's a catchy little ditty that makes me think of canoe trips with high school buddies, reconnecting with cases of beer, sunburns and lots of horseplay.

In the scalding creek
We were happy
Just to be happy, oh yeah
In the morning dew
We were living
But now we're giving, oh yeah

How are you today
How are you today, yeah

In the freezing lake
We were thinking
About drinking, oh yeah
In the morning dew
We were hoping
But now we're groping, oh yeah

Two items of note: I'm not sure about that last line, save for the fact that it's probably a joke related to the above-mentioned horseplay. When you're in the frozen lake thinking about drinking, it isn't long before the thinking gives way to drinking, and the drinking to goofing around. Perhaps when Robert Pollard does that, there is groping involved. Or, perhaps when he goes canoeing it's a co-ed affair, and the thinking and drinking turn to hoping and groping.

Oh, and the other item? About 30 seconds into the song, there is a tremendous, echoing crash. It certainly sounds like a mistake, but it was left in without comment. It reminds me of the rumbles that punctuate "We Walk" on R.E.M.'s Murmur, which, if I recall correctly, was the sound of bowling going on above (or is it next to?) the studio where the song was recorded. It's incongruous, and yet it fits, something that accurately describes this odd outburst.