Enjoy Jerusalem!

"Enjoy Jerusalem!" is another in a long line of examples of songs from Robert Pollard that show how much he can do with so little. In this case, nearly the entire song is carried musically by with two chords being slowly plucked on an electric guitar. A second guitar pops up for a few accent chords during the song, and add a counter point to the second half, but that's it. Everything else is Pollard's vocal, a languorous verse that slowly unfolds over the song's 2 minute runtime.

The lyric is full of great, if puzzling images.

The stark language of our cave
Whose guardian angels prohibit battery
A perfume not over-hyped
The cakemaker never fails to stun me

That last line must suffice as a chorus, as Pollard's double-tracked vocal rises on "stun me" (he does the same thing at the tail end of the next four-line set).

As I glow in television prison
The watcher at big church
Whereby bright sun ladies like to ride
And so do I my son, and so do I.

Note: The lyric references the title of a song earlier on the disc, "Television Prison." Did one inform the other? Perhaps Bob wrote this song, then realized that "Television Prison" was a good song title, or vice versa.

Perhaps it's an unfair notion to draw, but Jerusalem conjures religious overtones, one of the few topics Pollard seems to avoid in his songs. That seems borne out by lines about "guardian angels" and "the watcher at big church," but their meaning, if there is any, is unclear.

Strictly Comedy

It's clear that Robert Pollard is a fan of the Clean (look no further than Guided by Voices' spot-on cover of "Draw(in)g to a (W)hole" on the tribute God Save the Clean.), so it's no surprise to hear him occasionally echo that great New Zealand band's sound. He does so here with the simple, insistent acoustic guitar strum and thumping drums that drive "Strictly Comedy."

It's another Pollard song where the lyrics and title don't seem to match up, and where the lyrics don't immediately reveal themselves. It's a sea-based song with an interesting homonym in the first line: "Their wails heard from scenic overlooks," heard as "whales heard from scenic overlooks" if you don't bother to consult the lyric sheet, something driven home by the next line, "like fish marinating in the swamp, the glade, the pig parade."

Musically, the song does just enough to get the point across, and its simple execution makes me think of everything I dislike about Pollard's recent collaborations with Todd Tobias. It's not as if Pollard needs Tobias. Talented as he is -- and I'd never suggest the two shouldn't collaborate, but rather that they shouldn't do so on every one of Pollard's releases -- Tobias is a crutch for Pollard. It's easier for Pollard to sketch a batch of songs on acoustic guitar, send off a tape and get a finished album by return mail a few months later. But Kid Marine and other releases of this vintage, with Pollard on nearly all guitars and keyboards, shows he doesn't necessarily need the help. Making his own music, start to finish, would invigorate his albums, and might spark his creativity in ways a session sitting in front of a boombox with an acoustic guitar in his lap never will.

Flings of the Waistcoat Crowd

If there is one thing I've learned from writing about all of these Robert Pollard compositions over the past several months, it is that the Guided by Voices honcho has many, many quiet, tender tunes. I've long been a fan of his great Who-like rock tunes, fantastic, soaring anthems driven by power chords and crashing drums. But someone with the inclination could put together a pretty amazing little singer-songwriter album if they cherrypicked all of the songs like "Flings of the Waistcoat Crowd" from Pollard's catalog.

I mean, this thing is positively Crosby, Stills & Nash caliber. Pollard, dueting with himself, sings over some nice finger-picked guitar while a lone, barely noticed keyboard note fills in some of the aural background.

Lyrically, this feels like a Revolutionary War tale, something no doubt conjured by the title:

Over the big river
Scum of us rinsed by a hard rain
The tar, the teeth & the gear

Yet no trail
All around the camp
And that is our game
To brag and complain
To guess who goes next
To tally the scars
Learn every weakness

The song is bookended by near parallel lines that foretell some degradation in the situation of the person from whose viewpoint Pollard sings, starting with "Great days are becoming" and ending with the slightly less hopeful "Great days will be coming."

Regardless, it's a beautiful little song and another example that Pollard, despite the prominence of big, loud songs in his repertoire -- and the drunken party that always accompanies their performance -- he's equally talented at pinning his heart to his sleeve and singing sweetly.