Pegasus Glue Factory

In Greek mythology, Pegasus is a winged horse-god. In earlier times, the "glue factory" was the destination for old or injured horses. Their connective tissue was used to make glue. So, a "Pegasus Glue Factory" must be the mother of all glue factories, one that proves that even the mightiest horse, in this case Pegasus himself, will eventually break down and be worth little more than what can be rendered from his body.

What does all of this have to do with Robert Pollard's song, "Pegasus Glue Factory"? Everything and nothing, depending on your point of view. From a literal standpoint, there is nothing in the song to suggest the fall of Pegasus. But the lyric definitely deals with giving up and failing. "Dopey gave up his doomed ship Apocalypse," Pollard sings in the first verse. In the second he makes mention of "the dead career update," which certainly fits the notion of a glue factory.

But as usual, Pollard isn't clear about what is taking place. The references seem precise enough "20,000 rivers of oil slicks and blood," "Orville's fucking nightmare" and a "cyclops swallowing passwords," that this must surely be a reference to something specific.

Musically, the song is a mid-tempo track that has a nice, subtle guitar hook and a smooth vocal. Pollard puts some oomph into the bridge, but keeps things on an even keel elsewhere. That makes for a somewhat bland song, kept afloat by the subdued but insistent hooks.

Serious Bird Woman (You Turn Me On)

"Serious Bird Woman" is a good but strange tune for a number of reasons:

1) Todd Tobias finally uses an audible keyboard! Yes, he deploys it now and again, but not nearly enough, so the presence of something that sounds like a piano is a welcome element.

2) It's use here on this mid-tempo song, however, gives the track a real late-'80s power ballad vibe. Not a bad thing, just a bit out of character for Robert Pollard.

3) If Pollard stood in front of a microphone in a recording studio to cut these vocals I'd be very surprised. The quality of the vocals makes this sound like the most successful Psycho and the Birds experiment ever. Did this start as a demo that Pollard felt could not be improved from a vocal standpoint? If so, he was wrong, given the audible strain to get to some of the notes in the bridge, but it would at least explain the discrepancy.

4) Pollard actually sings the title in the chorus. In fact, lest anyone get confused, he sticks the rest of the chorus' main line in parentheses in the title. It's not just that she's a serious bird woman, but she also turns him on.

Top of My Game

"Top of My Game" is the rare Robert Pollard track that gets more interesting once the singing stops. The song begins simply enough, with some fingerpicked guitar and minimal bass. Pollard comes in with some sports references: "Don't move the chains, I'd like to see it, at least have it measured where logic remains," which is of course a reference to the chains used to keep track of a team's progress toward a first down in football. Transposing the metaphor to life, one supposes, Pollard is saying that he wants to take a moment after an accomplishment to savor it before moving on.

The song builds musically, with keyboards and drums, as Pollard continues, now telling the listener that he is willing, as his victory is celebrated, to rehash the stumbles along the way: "Don't have to say that it's over, point out the chokes and the jokes unexplained."

The song is only 2:30, and the vocals are only heard during the first half of that runtime. The song seems to reboot at that point, building again as it progresses toward the finish, offering a sort of instrumental version of itself from start to finish as a coda of sorts.

Tomorrow Will Not Be Another Day

By now it's clear that Robert Pollard writes unconventional songs. Some are all verse, others seem to completely lack verses. "Tomorrow Will Not Be Another Day" feels like the latter. It's really all bridge and chorus. Heck, it even starts with the lone guitar solo, a tasty little lick that most would put somewhere toward the end of the song. Not Pollard. He starts there, then dives into the melody at a spot where a bridge would normally go, then slides into the chorus which has its own odd little tag.

Lyrically, it's a bit strange, but that's no surprise. It works best on the second run through the chorus:

Something better for you
Something better for me
To bringing us strong drinks and cheap gas
Expand your comfort zone
High and walk me home.

It's yet another strong pop song on an album I had somewhat dismissed (wrongly, it seems) as the underwhelming follow up to the masterful From a Compound Eye.

Give Up the Grape

In seeming contrast to the Isolation Drills track "How's My Drinking?" (let alone "Sister I Need Wine") in which Robert Pollard sings "I don't care about being sober" and pledges "I will never change" here he sings "Every morning when I suffer the break, tell my baby I will give up the grape." There is no indication, however, that his protagonist actually intends to give up wine. He ends that first verse with the line, "Other than that you know I'm all right," as if the promise to quit drinking is frequent, and unmet.

Later, he sings "I drink myself astray, from shadows of fantastic middle-earth. Other than that you know I'm all right." This guy is obviously dealing with some delusions, perhaps caused, and certainly not alleviated by booze.

The song is a rare instance in Pollard's back catalog of the lyric not really fitting the music. Todd Tobias has crafted a good groove that pushes Pollard to sound a bit aggressive, loudly proclaiming the opening lines. Yet the character of which he sings sounds like a stoner, someone lost in another world who assures his significant other that he'll change, with no real intention to do so.

Rhoda Rhoda

"Rhoda Rhoda" is the kind of effortless pop song that Robert Pollard used to toss off in his sleep, but by the time of his solo CD, Normal Happiness, such breezy, carefree pop seemed refreshingly quaint. No one with a passable familiarity with Pollard's back catalog would suggest that he's suddenly become a noise-hungry experimenter -- just listen to Same Place the Fly Got Smashed -- but the outlet afforded by his Fading Captain series certainly seemed to give him license to worry about entertaining himself first, and offering hooks to captivate listeners second.

The result is a recent catalog full of more challenging songs and light on the short, hooky tunes that so entranced listeners circa Bee Thousand. His most successful releases, such as the masterful From a Compound Eye, strike a nice balance between those two sides. Still, it was heartening to hear that Normal Happiness was being billed by the man himself as the poppiest thing he'd ever done. Giving a listen to "Rhoda Rhoda" and other hook-filled songs here, one would be hard-pressed to argue, but taking the disc in full reveals it to be a fairly typical collection of modern-day Pollardiana. Uncle Bob writes and records the melody and lyrics, and his main foil, Todd Tobias (the Rhoda to Pollard's Mary, I guess), fills in the rest of the canvas.

With "Rhoda Rhoda," one assumes Tobias had little room to maneuver, as Pollard's strummed guitar and sweet vocal line fairly dominate proceedings. It's the kind of song that would likely stand up as strongly as a solo demo. Tobias adds drums and perhaps bass (things are a bit fuzzed-out so it's hard to tell) and little more, but it's enough to flesh out one of Pollard's strongest melodies in recent memory.

As for what it all means? Well, as usual, not much. It's easy to read self-reference into Pollard's lyrics, particularly with lines like "Everyone's talking to me, 'take a break from the year's bundle,'" which seems like Pollard acknowledging the oft-heard criticism of his ultra-prolific nature. In the end, it doesn't really matter. One can look for deep meaning, but as Pollard has often revealed, the lyrics are simply words that sound good carrying the melody, and in the case of "Rhoda Rhoda," they sound mighty fine indeed.