Guided by Voices
“My Kind of Soldier” b/w “Broken Brothers”
2003, The Fading Captain Series
At the start of 2003, Robert Pollard thought that the next Guided by Voices album, Earthquake Glue, was done.
It was recorded, nipped, tucked, polished and sequenced as a set of fourteen songs that starts quiet, ends with a rocker, and flies through a variety of moods in between. It was another one of those careful Pollard tracklists of hills and valleys and his ear for classic two-sided presentation. I don’t know what stage the sleeve art was in at this time, but the music at least was in the can. It was finished. Fin. Complete. The glue was dry.
And then Pollard wrote a new song afterward that he insisted had to go on it.
The band booked studio time in Chicago (I think they were in the city to play a show), banged out the song, and then Earthquake Glue had another track (and its first single) and it was called “My Kind of Soldier”.
Now the album was really done.
I’ve followed Pollard’s music for a long time and I always attach his records to the season when it’s released. It’s near-instant recall for me. Going back to 1996, I can tell you where I was living, where I was working, and what I was doing when new music from him was in my hands. He typically puts out something new every 3-4 months, which means that there’s always, naturally, a winter album and a spring album and so forth.
New Guided by Voices records at this time came out in the summer and maybe that’s why it was so important for “My Kind of Soldier” to get a slot on Earthquake Glue.
Because it sounds like summer. You splash around the swimming pool to this one (not that I have a pool, but if I ever have one…).
It’s also terrific pop with sunlight in every note and chord. No trace of prog influences here. In the Jim Greer book, Guided by Voices: A Brief History, Pollard explains that he saw a girl in cut-off army fatigues bend over and he quipped “That’s my kind of soldier”, which sounds about right for a song this fizzy. The words aren’t about a girl, but Pollard did seize on the line and then filled the space around it with lyrics about military imagery and fighting and victory.
There’s nothing tough or aggressive about the song, though. You can’t load a rifle to it. Going to war is a simple metaphor for doing anything with an ambition to succeed.
Playing a rock show. Finishing a project. Winning a game. Getting in shape. Breaking a bad habit. Building a rocketship in your backyard. Whatever war that you’re fighting counts. This is Pollard the optimist singing. It’s going to take some work to achieve a goal, but you can do it. Here’s a song to help you out.
If the A-side arms us with motivation, the B-side disarms us with a toasty warm melody about repairing damaged relationships. It brings a little summer, too, but with more of an early evening golden hour feel. Pollard would rewrite “Broken Brothers” as a song called “Every Word in the World” for his next solo album, Fiction Man, but I think the best version hides on this 7″. Like that girl in cut-offs, this record looks good from the back.