Captain Black

Whenever "Captain Black" pops up on shuffle play, I have one of two fairly diametrically opposed thoughts: The first is that the song is one of those snippets Robert Pollard does so well -- a quick hook that is neither verse nor chorus, and then done. The second is that the song's lyric is much lengthier and more involved than it is. The truth is somewhere in between.

The hook is strong from the beginning. Though there is little there. It's simply Pollard singing a strong melody over a quiet trio backing. The lyric lasts less than two minutes, which gives rise to that first thought. But the song itself is three minutes long, meaning that quiet backing goes on for quite a while. In this case, it is joined by engineer John Shough's piano, a much too infrequent addition to the Guided by Voices/Pollard arsenal. Despite that length, the lyric is concise; it feels like the soundtrack to a short story, in part because of its brevity and in part because of the level of detail packed into that small space.

Red Ink Superman

"Red Ink Superman" certainly has its fans, but without the payoff of the last line, I probably wouldn't be among them.

The song starts oddly, even for a Robert Pollard song, with what sounds like a recording of a room where no one knows the recorder is on. That segues into a tape that sounds like a 78 playing at 33 speed, a sludgy guitar undercutting a vocal that is monstrous and unintelligible. As that fades, the real song begins, building on a single plucked note that sounds like a mellower version of the start to "I Am a Tree." The song slowly builds over the rest of its running time. Motel of Fools was conceived as the soundtrack for a non-existent film, and this build up can perhaps be forgiven in that context.

Pollard's vocal melody is fine, though it's nothing special given the competition in his back catalog alone. There is plenty of color-related imagery, with "red-light specials," "blue-ink dreams" and "white man's money," and a few compelling couplets like "Ain't no clouds above ya, proves the angels love ya."

The payoff, nearly five minutes after that strange beginning, comes as Pollard begins to chant:
"We'll even the score in World War IV" again and again. It's a great line and he knows it, making sure to include it in Guided by Voices last show (and doing so early enough in the set that he is sober enough to be understood) and sticking it on a T-shirt as well. It's a rousing line, made all the more potent by what was going on in the world as he sang it (and what, sadly, continues to transpire that makes it seem more prophetic than fantastical).

In the House of Queen Charles Augustus

Robert Pollard has made a habit of fusing disparate bits of music together to create one song, and "In the House of Queen Charles Augustus" is among the most interesting of these experiments. The song begins with a minute of a capella Bob, singing lines that all begin "truly I saw..." The things he saw never clicked for me until I read the lyrics one day, and was surprised to see that some of them were things he also sings about in "Subspace Biographies" from his second solo disc, Waved Out. These duplicated references are made to "quail and quasar," "an undetermined person" and "empties fired away." Not being there, I can only speculate about the genesis of this section, but I'd guess that Pollard hit up on the melody he wanted, found that "truly I saw" was the way to convey it, and then cast about for things to see. Who knows why, but the "Subspace Biographies" lyrics (or perhaps their inspiration) caught his eye. The other references are probably from some of those unreleased songs on cassettes in a box in Pollard's basement. Watch for songs containing lyrics about "fallen waves," "the color and the cover" and "12 states on 50 pages" sometime around the release of Suitcase 4.

That's just the first quarter of the song, however. After a seconds-long cheesy keyboard bridge that fades into a quiet wash of background sound, Pollard returns to sing over a couple of strummed acoustic guitars. This, it would seem, is the actual song of the title. The lyrics seem to be bitter commentary about the powers that be. He offers some truly arresting imagery here, singing about a "telegram of steam and winter green," and suggesting "pull the cork and watch the party flow."

One final note: Pollard throws a lyrical curve ball with the reference to Queen Charles Augustus. There are plenty of prominent people from throughout history named Charles Augustus, but the one that catches the eye when thinking of Pollard is Charles A. Lindbergh, the famed pilot. Yep, the "A" stands for Augustus. Given Pollard's Daytonian fascination with planes and flight, perhaps this is some sort of commentary related to Lucky Lindy?