Guided by Voices
“Everywhere With Helicopter” b/w “Action Speaks Volumes”
2002, The Fading Captain Series
Rock is the word and the word is rock for this third 7″ on the ramp up to GBV’s indie rock homecoming album, Universal Truths and Cycles.
“Everywhere With Helicopter” is as commercial a single as Guided by Voices ever put out. Your average radio call-in contestant for Foo Fighters tickets in 2002 could easily get into its Nirvana-like kick. Meanwhile, Pollard’s melody ascends, descends, spins and attacks like an expertly flown Air Force jet maneuver. Every verse is a rocket that takes out a target.
It sounds like it should be in an action movie. The lyrics play around with military imagery, but they’re vague enough for different readings. Right next to “Sky all around me/ Levels life from roof to floor” is “Trees and knees are lovely/ Seek it, find the core”.
“Trees” and “knees” sound like targets. Trees are places to hide. Knees are weak points. Perfect places to attack.
The opening lines stick with me, too. “Eyeline the driveway/ Eyeblack the door”. Driveways and doors don’t sound like places that helicopter pilots care about. They sound like places where kids play.
That leads to my interpretation of this song, which is that it’s a parody of kid’s toy commercials–and maybe, by extension, a joke about how adults sometimes don’t get over it. Pollard isn’t one for hawkish messages. The Universal Truths and Cycles album is one that crawls toward the light after a dark period. Yes, America was still reeling from September 11, 2001, but Pollard never stood on a soapbox over it. (Let Neil Young and Paul McCartney trip over that one.)
I think the helicopter in “Everywhere With Helicopter” is made of plastic and comes in a cardboard box and fits in a shopping cart. It’s a gift for a kid on his birthday. Some assembly required.
The B-side, “Action Speaks Volumes” stands in contrast to the dynamic headliner with about three-and-a-half minutes of leaden dirge. It finds its soul in a caveman groove that evokes a slow but steady piece of industrial machinery. It sounds like it’s manufacturing anvils. If it’s supposed to put me in a trance, it doesn’t quite do it. A better dirge made it to the album, which is coming up at #75.