Robert Pollard
I’m a Strong Lion
2005, Must Destroy!!
“The label in the UK wanted to put out a single for From a Compound Eye and THAT was the song they picked. They wanted to put out a single that was one minute and five seconds long, And that’s why they were a GOOD LABEL! I agree with that!”
–Robert Pollard in Dallas, Texas, June 2018, as remembered by me, after Guided by Voices played “I’m a Strong Lion”
“I’m a Strong Lion”, the shortest track on an epic double album, is definitive Pollard.
The melody? Bubblegum-worthy. The tempo? In a rush! The lyrics? Straightforward for him, as well as personal and cutting. It’s like an Archies song except from an artist with something to get off his chest.
Here, he addresses his reputation, among some critics, as a tyrant who can’t keep a band together. His words offer no apologies. “Sure as I’m dyin’ here/ The problem is solved/ And it hurts to know/ You won’t be involved/ But I can beat you to the strong side/ Right away/ I’ll meet you today”.
Pollard refuses to keep a band going that isn’t working out (or that he feels has run its course). Life is too short for that. He’s too old for that. Interpersonal drama within a band rarely makes the music better anyway. If you don’t like that, he doesn’t care. His lyrics might be directed toward an ex-bandmate or even to a fan who can’t hang with the latest change. Either interpretation fits.
The brief run-time is part of the statement. A little over one minute. That’s all the time that he’s going to spend talking about this. Pollard moves on and so does this song.
The two B-sides are gorgeous sleepers. They’re 4-track solo demos from the Universal Truths and Cycles days. Don’t overlook them, particularly if you dig the sound of Pollard alone with a guitar.
“Breadcrumbs for the Whales” is a spellbinding, mysterious sketch of a would-be epic. It was the 7″ flipside. The CD includes that and the yearning ballad “Inchworm Parade”.
It’s a fun single that reminds me of a fun time. 2005. We spent most of that year not knowing when From a Compound Eye was coming out. We FINALLY got the official announcement in October. The release date was January of 2006, from Merge Records in the US and Must Destroy!! in the UK.
However, some had it as far back as the summer of 2004 when it was intentionally leaked, with Pollard’s blessing, to a select group of fans.
Those people shared it with others and by fall of that year, it seemed like anyone on the forums could get it if you really wanted it. Pollard was high on this record as one of his best, but with Guided by Voices on their farewell tour, he knew that it would take awhile to come out and he didn’t want the diehards to wait that long. There may have also been hope that it might gain a word-of-mouth reputation. After his TVT experience, maybe he was done with trusting a record label to properly promote his work so he threw it to the fans.
In the world of 2004, in which the music industry fought and filed lawsuits to stop advance leaks of new albums, Pollard authorized a leak of his own unreleased record and trusted his audience to still want to buy it.
From what I recall, people were cool about keeping it off of the file-sharing networks. To get it, you had to ask someone and they might agree to burn you a CD-R because that’s how we rolled in 2004.
I THINK that’s the way it worked, at least, because I wasn’t among those who had the album early. Never even tried to get it.
This all happened smack in the middle of my Vinyl Freak period. I lived for crate-digging. I was militant. I was dedicated. I WANTED to wait for the new Pollard to come out on vinyl until I heard it.
Four sides and a gatefold sleeve. That was how it had to be for me. Nothing less would do.
Also, with ten releases in 2005, Pollard was always there in my life anyway. I could wait.
I’d go so far as to say that I think Pollard’s music appeals best to those who value patience, whether that means waiting for a new album to come out in tactile form or waiting for his latest weird sequence of songs to grow on us.
Alien Lanes is one of the great albums to me because I still remember how much I DIDN’T understand it when I first heard it (I was 19), yet I was still compelled to keep trying and when I emerged from the other side, I not only had a new favorite record, but I’d learned about album sequencing and how noise and mystery and messiness are peak rock ‘n’ roll. Alien Lanes fucked me up and confused me. And I’m glad that it did.
The latest album by Guided by Voices, as of this writing, Nowhere to Go But Up, is another stop on the same highway. My first listen was bewildering. The brain seeks familiar patterns and so many of Pollard’s songs fly against that. The song that you hear in the first minute might be completely different in the next minute and it makes the change so casually. He might not be bashing out songs in a basement much anymore, but Pollard’s eccentricity is in the blood. It’s always there and I’m hooked on exploring it.
Now, I think that Nowhere to Go But Up is beautiful. It took me time to get into it, but I like that. It’s going to take me a few decades (seriously) to get to it in this series and I like that, too. These records are supposed to ferment and age like wine before I cover them. I don’t know what I’ll have to say about Nowhere to Go But Up in twenty years and I look forward to finding out.
Hopefully, I live that long.
I’m trying. I ate some kale today.
Next up: From a Compound Eye, a masterpiece from the team of Pollard and Todd Tobias that has only gotten better with age and that stands as the uncompromising work of a strong lion.