Entry Four: Jar of Cardinals

From "Vampire on Titus," 1993

To me, "Vampire on Titus" is, as an album, a hit-or-miss proposition. Some of the songs are simply not fleshed out or so experimental and hasty in their construction as to be almost non-melodic. Other songs (see "Wished I Was a Giant") are great tunes but suffer from mixing and production problems so severe that they greatly subtract from a song's overall effectiveness. Lo-fi is cool; no-fi isn't.

"Jar of Cardinals," however, stands out on this inconsistent opus. Its jaunty little guitar line all but begs the listener to sway his head from side-to-side a la Hamburg-era Beatles. It is an honest and earnest pop song, unashamed to be almost cute. Never was Bob's ersatz English accent more appropriately deployed than in this chipper little ditty. The dual tracked Bob-on-Bob haromny at song's end pretty well cements this tune as a playful homage to the pop tunes of the early to mid-60s.

Lyrically, as with most Pollard, it's not a literal song. That being said, there is a strongly pastoral feel to the words. It may, in part, be a love song, but we are not berated with specific and trite imagery. In fact, the lyrics in "Jar of Cardinals" illustrate one of Pollard's strongest assets as a lyricist: an ability to be unpredictably uncliched. While there is an upbeat, major-key chirpiness to this tune, Bob as always, avoids cheesiness and values lyrical unpredictability without veering too far in the other direction of cheap "Purple Monkey Dishwasher" non-sequitir. By swapping "seedling" for the well-worn "baby" in the line, "Hush now seedling, don't you cry" Bob manages to redirect our conditioned expectations. Similarly, the alternation of the lines "Quite soon for you / Quite sinful you" at the songs end is effectively playful without being too clever by half.

B

Favorite lyric: "Hush now seedling, don't you cry / Maybe I'll be coming home quite soon for you / Quite sinful you..."