Society Dome

If pressed to name my favorite Robert Pollard songs, "Society Dome" would surely find a place in its upper reaches. That's strange, given the fact that it's not at all typical of Pollard, being neither a full-bore riff rocker or a quirky bit of psych pop. And while his collaborations have yielded many great songs, I can' say that I'd put many of those in any sort of "best songs" list.

But the combination of Doug Gillard's simple-sounding yet insanely catchy acoustic guitar figure and Pollard's alternately breezy and earnest vocal just does something to me. Every time the song comes on, I can guarantee I'll want to hear it again. In fact, it has played once just one time, on my first pass through the album. After that, it was repeat city.

Lyrically, Pollard doesn't do much. He does offer an odd juxtaposition, essentially marrying a futuristic tale with Gillard's classic folk melody and song structure. I imagine some sort of space soldier planning to return from battle, heading home "to the common section, to the place that we call home, to the list of viruses."

But does he really get to go? "I'm going home, focus on a dream, try to find a way out," he sings, as if he's unclear whether his desire to leave is enough to make it reality.

The "society dome" in question is not explained, save for the fact that Pollard plans to "stay in, keep it on." It's a perfectly Pollardian term, something likely picked up from a sci-fi novel or a misheard bit of conversation. Perhaps there was a point at which he thought about using it as the title for a collage, then found himself humming it while listening to Gillard's tapes and decided to write a song around it. Now, I'm the one idly humming it, finding myself singing "society dome, stay in, keep it on" under my breath at odd moments, despite weeks or even months having passed since I last played it.

Despite such lags, I've heard it dozens and dozens of times with no drop off in its charms.

Starts at the River

Robert Pollard's voice is fairly malleable, and it has been interesting over the course of his career to watch as he experiments with the possibilities of his instrument. On "Starts at the River," he may have found at least one frontier not worth pushing through, singing at the very top of his range for the song's entirety.

The song is a chugging rocker from Doug Gillard, who handles all of the instrumental chores. Pollard, for whatever reason, chose a melody line at the upper end of the register, singing a bit of abstraction, tackling drink and the scent of a woman and fire before hitting the chorus:

It is here?
In the head of a heart
Where it counts? Where it starts?
Is it in the river?

Pollard's vocals aren't bad -- we're not talking Geddy Lee here -- but a little of this goes a long way.

The most notable thing about the song is Gillard's great solo in the middle, a muscular bit of string-wrangling that sounds like a wrestling match between guitarist and guitar, one won, ultimately, by Gillard.

Red Whips and Miracles

It's clear by now that Robert Pollard doesn't need a collaborator to come up with scads of great songs. It should also be clear, however, that the right collaborator can certainly help that process. Look no further than to Pollard's work with guitarist Doug Gillard. More than just his musical foil in Guided by Voices, Gillard has proven to be a talented, valuable teammate for Pollard, someone whose ideas seem to spark some of Uncle Bob's most compelling creativity.

In addition to the pair's work together during the final third of GBV's career, Gillard and Pollard collaborated on two discs that found Gillard providing all of the music and Pollard creating vocals and melodies to go over top. It's the same format he used on discs with Superchunk's Mac McCaughn, former GBV guitarist Tobin Sprout, Tommy Keene and others. The best of these collaborations begin with solid songs. There has been a tendency to throw experimental, half-finished fragments at Pollard to see what he can make, and the results have been interesting. But real songs lacking only words and melody have yielded the best results in these exchanges, and Gillard has come through with several gems.

He does so with "Red Whips and Miracles" from the duo's second collaboration disc (this one under the name Lifeguards). Mist King Urth isn't as immediately poppy as its predecessor, Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department, but it is more musically interesting. "Red Whips" is a big reason for that. Setting aside his guitar for much of the song, Gillard instead creates a jaunty songbed with piano, drums and a punchy bass. Pollard sings one of his most straight-forward melodies here, the song loping along with little dynamic shift for about four minutes. Then the vocals drop away, as do the drums and bass. Gillard's piano line continues, then expands as he adds slight embellishments to it. Soon keyboards wash in to add color as things wind down in anticipation of the inevitable slow build. When it comes, with Gillard strapping on his guitar to lay down a minute or so of psychedelic guitar, it's a sweet catharsis that offers a fitting close to the album. At more than eight minutes, it's one of the longest songs in Pollard's cannon, but it never drags.

While it has been interesting to see how Pollard works alone or in concert with new uber-producer Todd Tobias, one hopes he and Gillard return to the studio some day to further explore this partnership.