Fillmore Jive

One night benders - no matter the drug - used to be a ton of fun, but I was never really sure why. You would eventually hit a point where all you want to do is pass out, be left alone, and wake up in your bed as if nothing had happened.

Of course, you know exactly how you arrived at this point. The night was electric. "The jam kids on the Vespas" and all of that. Crowded streets. Even more crowded bars or house parties. You felt alive. You grabbed the bottle for another swig, a pill there, a toke here. The night was going to be memorable one way or the other.

Then, it all hit you like a ton of bricks. You shouldn't have had that last drink or eaten that mushroom. This rock 'n roll lifestyle is old and not really that rewarding. So, you want out. You wanted to pass out on the couch.

Maybe you did pass out on the couch or in the kitchen or by the toilet or in the back of a car. No matter. If you could have just laid there with no distractions, you could have slept it off.

However, this was the night that would never end. Some late-comers entered with fresh cases of beer, a bag of weed, and some blow. You probably couldn't pick yourself up to join them at that moment, but you also couldn't drag yourself out of the room. You weren't just fucked, you were fucked and had to suffer while these douche-bags turned up the stereo and started the whole night over for you.

At this point in the evening (or morning) the room was spinning and you had lost complete and utter control. At best, you eventually passed out and snuck in a couple hours of sleep before slipping out without anyone noticing. At worst, and most likely, you puked all over the place. Someone cleaned you up and arranged for a ride home. Hopefully, you were just able to sleep in your own bed.

That's the Fillmore Jive.

Gold Soundz

"Gold Soundz" is a relationship song. The relationship is new and fun in the beginning. He trusts her with secrets and likes how she laughs at the ignorance of others. He gives her space, but he likes that she's empty like him, etc.

Alas, it can't last. Remembering past transgressions drums up some hurt feelings, possibly even revealing new deceptions. There's a quick about-face. Secrets are taken back.

Luckily, it's a young love. The kind that's fleeting. The affairs that last a summer or a semester. The memories and experience are worth it if for nothing else other than the short-lived passions.

-----------------------------

A couple of other thoughts...

Does SM sing "that I won't eat you when I'm gone" or does he sing "need" where "eat" goes? Eat doesn't make much sense. Need makes a ton of sense. However, it certainly sounds like he says "eat" in either a nonsensical manner or crass one. I sort of suspect the lyric is meant to be "need" and Malk plays around a little in the studio and changes it to "eat".

The phrase "quarantine the past" appears in this track. Interestingly, it's also the title of the band's greatest "hits" collection released earlier this year. The implication is that the collection attempts to quarantine the past, but in actuality, one can't quarantine Pavement's past, at least not from the alt rock reunion circuit.

OK. Make it three thoughts. The accompanying video is absurd. The band in Santa costumes go bow hunting for a dead chicken in an outdoor shopping center in order to gain the keys to a convertible...Well, you just have to watch it.

Curt Your Hair

If Pavement ever had a "hit," this was it. "Cut Your Hair" was Buzzworthy on MTV and even received decent radio play from commercial stations. If there was a quintessential Pavement song, I'd also argue that "Cut Your Hair" earns that title as well. Honestly, this was the song that introduced me to the band.

Lyrically, the song is on the silly side, but there is an underlying punk ethos there that drives the sentiment home. Pavement was coming along at a time when underground bands were being scooped up and marketed to the masses. Lost was any of the energy or originality that made these bands so sought after by the majors in the first place. Pavement saw this going on around them and responded in song.

Each of the three verses address a movement away from music toward image. The first verse comes across as harmless, but it addresses image over content in the form of a haircut, the song's main theme. The haircut won't suddenly make a mediocre band great or a crummy album go platinum. However, tell that to all the bands posing as "emo" nowadays. Emo bands used to look like the guys in Pavement, not dudes with black eye make-up and silly haircuts.

The second verse becomes clearer as it addresses the over-saturation of bands to the market. Of course, the dilution of good music through the overabundance of bands has only worsened over the years, but the early nineties was the beginning. Another great song from the era that addresses this issue is Archers of Loaf's "Greatest of All-Time."

The third verse comes with a full-on attack on sell-outs. Buying songs and legitimacy is bashed. Image is pummeled by superior songwriting while the song unravels into rants of careerism. ("Career, career, Korea...")

Besides being one of Pavement's catchiest tunes, it is higlighted by several aesthetics that make it so memorable. First of all, the whoo-ooh-ooh's that fill the space between the verses are as memorable, if not more, than the lyrics or music or band itself. Also earmarking the song as a significant part of the ouvre, the guitar solo winds and whirls out of control, clearly setting Pavement apart from the hair-metal wannabe's of the grunge era. Finally, the song had a string of lines about drummers that either referenced those who hit the skins for Spinal Tap or former drummer, Gary Young.

The song has had an extra emotional tie for me as of late. My daughter, Lucia, was born three weeks ago, and this seems to be her favorite song...so far. Or at least my slower, twangier version sooths her like no other mid-nineties song I sing to her.

Newark Wilder

Cryptic is a love song for polygamists. Malkmus begins the story with a passionate courtship. A brand new era is about to commence for our hero. However, there's the sticky situation with the spouse already in place and not willing to give up her partner...

She won't let you know that I need a right to touch her
She won't let you wait for me
For me to touch you

A once happy marriage is tangled in the mire of a threesome and possible divorce.

Crowds of the people and voices and steeples and wedding rings
Wild are the horses and break-up divorces and separate rooms from

In the end, compromise is found. The first wife keeps the new one hidden, cut out of pictures. The man's needs are met. He's satisfied.

Three of us is enough.

The song, despite the strange, jazzy rhythms, would fit nicely in an episode of Big Love. Its groove is sleepy, almost lazy, but it fills in the slot right behind the radio-ready poppiness of "Cut Your Hair" just before it leads into the raucous "Unfair." "Newark Wilder" is the perfect segue on a perfect album.

Elevate Me Later

The Left is a mess. I'm talking about the left of the political spectrum, the Left Coast, whatever else is left. I don't know that SM was speaking directly to the problems of anything "left", but I do get the sense that's the resulting message of "Elevate Me Later".

Somewhere it's written that Crooked Rain Crooked Rain is Pavement's Hotel California, hence the never-ending Cali references and that sunny, SoCal sound made so famous by the Eagles. Of course, SM and Spiral Stairs grew up in the depressingly NoCal town they forgot to name (Stockton). So, maybe that's why they're somewhat critical of the "The Golden State".

California's reputation as leftist or the "Left Coast" only makes it the perfect locale for ridicule. Political correctness sometimes goes overboard on the political left where the so-called right stays the course and takes down a road from which we might never return. Look at the Democratic primary. Two minority candidates beat up each other over who will best represent the left while the old white guy on the right sits back and waits patiently.

I don't think Pavement is/was anti-left. I just think they, like many progressive thinkers grow weary of the constant battles that occur within the ranks of liberal, leftist, whatever thinkers. Instead of finding answers, the left continues to tear itself down with hypocrisy and a fastidious intolerance of ideas that veer in other directions. California embodies this sentiment with its hippies, punks, and wannabe actors and all the ways in which they miss the point.

Stop Breathin'

I always thought this song was about a poor soldier coming to his end while fighting in the trenches of World War I, then someone suggested that it had more to do with losing a tennis match. Now, I don't know what to think.

That first volley could be a bombardment from the enemy that leaves our hero's corps depleted and running for cover. The protagonist does not make it out, but is somewhat thankful to not have to deal with the endless rounds of artillery dropped on his position. He's given up as he feels his life fading. The song even has this lullaby feel as if to see the dieing soldier is drifting off for the last time.

Then, suddenly he fights the medics as they struggle to keep lead character alive. He doesn't want to go on; he wants it to be over.

The other theory is that it's a similarly slow death only this time it's a tennis star losing an important match. He's tired of the endless play. He wishes his defeat would just come already. After he loses his final match, like the soldier, he will be forgotten, left alone to live out his days without the pressures of a professional tennis career to weigh on his conscience.

Either way, the protagonist just wants to be left alone to wallow in his own misery.

Silence Kit

I remember being on an early version of a Pavement list serve. There was a long debate over "Silence Kit" and whether "kit" was actually "kid" and whether that kid was male or female. Quite pointless, actually. It's about as pointless as some guy blogging every other week about the meaning of Pavement songs.

For me (and probably a few others out there), the song is a farewell to Pavement's former drummer, Gary Young. From what I've read about Young, he was a nuisance, an amusing distraction, and a necessary evil rolled into one hand-standing anomaly. Although, many seem to prefer his drumming over the rest of Pavement's drummers, it was undeniable that Young was a loose canon while performing on tour. He often consumed too many chemicals, ruined performances by tossing cabbage at the audience, and pulled guns on band mates. All of this tomfoolery - and the fact Young couldn't keep time - contributed to his being dismissed prior to the release of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.

The song opens with an awkward guitar solo, backed by flourishes of drumming. One cannot help but notice the perpetual cow bell in the background. Soon, SM breaks in, out of tune as always.

The band's frustration with their former drummer comes through in the lyrics. They didn't want to babysit an immature, burnt-out punk that was a moderate-at-best musician and a mess on stage. Young obviously had a load of baggage that the other band members did not have time for. In the final verse, SM calls for the kit while Young saunters off to masturbate in an ecstasy-fueled state.

Gary Young later became known as "Plantman" thanks to a forgettable post-Pavement effort. I wonder whatever happened to Pavement's original drummer...

Range Life

"Range Life" is one of my favorite alt-country farces of all-time (along with the Lemonheads' "Big Gay Heart"). The song describes an aging hippie (I hate hippies!) remembering his days in the limelight and as a skater-punk of the streets. He longs for that slow country life, the range life, so he can settle down.

The interesting part of the song is the third verse in which the hippie calls out the rock gods of the time, the Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots. Much was made of the Smashing Pumpkins being described as "nature kids" who "have no function". Billy Corgan was so insulted that he supposedly refused to play Lollapalooza if Pavement was on the bill. Whatever. Pavement played the next year at my favorite Lollapalooza (right after a stirring set by Sinead O'Connor!).

Malkmus often inserted other bands into the slots occupied by the Pumpkins and STP when playing the song live. I remember seeing them at Lollapalooza in Columbus, OH. He inserted Royal Trux as the "nature kids" and the Afghan Whigs as the "eligible bachelors". It was a clever nod to two great indie bands from Ohio (although, the Whigs weren't so indie at that time). The Trux recorded on Pavement's old label, Drag City.