The Steve Reynolds Program - Big Boring Wedding
Five random thoughts that I'll try to make as unmediated as possible.
"Skam Lykely" would be a good MC name.
Chali 2na is not a good MC name, but a good MC. His baritone rules.
The demolition of First Christian Church in Oklahoma City depressed the hell out of me. More than the reality that OU ain't ready to win it all.
"Asteroid kamikaze" is a hell of a phrase.
I'm really excited about the book I'm writing. (That link is very loosely connected to it)
Oh yeah, I should make clear for new folks and old subscribers who forgot. This newsletter has write-ups on each of the songs on a playlist I made of my Top 100 songs. They should come out twice a week. All right!
Song #7
Big Boring Wedding
by Guided by Voices
Robert Pollard writes lyrics like James Joyce wrote the prose in Ulysses. Dayton is his Dublin. It‘s not exactly stream of consciousness (though he gets purt’ near to that at times). He reassembles words, phrases, people and experiences, past and present, around him into something that may be opaque in plain meaning yet opens up several more possibilities/profundities in what the hell he is singing about.
“Big Boring Wedding,” one of the six songs begrudgingly affixed to the end of their Under The Bushes, Under The Stars (Bob originally wanted them released as an EP; his label Matador disagreed) album, is almost a collage of music as well as words. To wit, the title “Big Boring Wedding” is listed on songs on a 1985 cassette that may or may not exist. The melody of the verse shows up first on Suitcase (the archive of early cassette recordings blessedly released in 2000) in the song “Dancing With The Answers.”
Pixie/Breeder/Amp/fellow Daytonian Kim Deal produced this song. Unfortunately, her time behind the board was a brief chapter in the history of Guided by Voices recordings (for reasons personal, stylistic and of patience). Deal got a full-bodied sound from the band, especially from drummer Kevin Fennell—a feat no one else got as close to. The decision to include at the beginning the guitar tuning down the E string to D and then play the simple three notes of the barre chords builds up the song and makes the opening line I have entered a shiny new realm feel almost like a story.
Is the song actually about a wedding, like for marriage? Bob does allude to a ring (with one good finger you try me on for size), but it could be about the process of collaboration: first the initial trepidation (a very different and very spoiled world, then euphoria (it's with great pleasure i introduce myself) then the boredom (it's hard to imagine that you just wanna leave) and feeling confined (with nowhere left to go). Is it a coincidence this was the last full album with the so-called classic lineup?
The structure of the song intrigues. Its Verse/Chorus/Bridge/Chorus. puts more focus on an extremely sing-alongable chorus only Bob can conjure, “Pass the word, the chicks are back! The chicks are back!” This phrase, recalled from a pipe tobacco commercial from the sixties, is total Bob. He’ll summon up an old memory and throw into it the mix. It may not follow logic or time but hey, this is poetry; it’s not a damn op-ed.
But why this announcement, sung triumphantly until the song fades out, on a song named “Big Boring Wedding”? Was the wedding the signing of the band to a major label? No longer recording in the comfort of Bob’s basement or Tobin Sprout’s garage, was it tough to adjust to the studios of Steve Albini and Kim Deal? Is announcing the chicks are back a reminder that no matter the attendant stresses, they still get to make great rock music?
Or maybe it’s an assertion that in life, inspirations will always appear. Good times don’t end. And a big boring wedding can be saved by a reception afterwards with an open bar.
Afterthoughts
For this issue's Song I’m Mad I Forgot To Put On The List, I'm saying a song played at my own not-so-big-nor-boring wedding, Into My Arms by Nick Cave. It's a good 'un.
I did a last-second standup spot at a tasting room last Friday. It ALMOST made me want to hit open mics and work on this again. Who knows?