Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Is "Smothered in Hugs " about Jesus Christ?

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Guided By Voices are known if anything for their massive recorded output: dozens of albums, 3 or 4 different boxed sets, and at least a dozen more solo records and side project thingies. One album does tends to stand apart and that's Bee Thousand. It's not a radical departure from the rest of their catalog, but it is just a little different. It's got your Beatles-y /power pop sort of songs up front then it gradually adds more and more home recorded foolishness/ brilliance with uncanny track sequencing, like a musical or something. It's the most accesible avant garde album and weirdest pop album of it's time. There's even a book about it. The name apparently came from the misreading of a movie marquee for "Beethoven" a kids movie about a huge loveable St Bernard.


The song "Smothered in Hugs" is one I think about sometimes. If you listen closely, it sounds like the song is describing Jesus Christ from the view of a disciple/ follower. Songwriter Robert Pollard has denied (link=old Magnet interview I can't find) that and usually says something along the lines of the lyrics are stream of conscious and more about the sound of the words and so forth. Many of the band's songs and albums do seem to have themes though, the answer may be somewhere in between. "Smothered In Hugs" is not my favorite song TITLE by a long shot, that would be maybe The Who vs Porky Pig? I'd have to think about it.




In the summer that you came
there was something eating everyone
And the sunshine fund was low
We couldn't greet you with a simple hello
And the watchers of the flood were busy in their chambers
Making sure there was new blood to sustain their dying veins

But I believed you
No need for further questioning
I'm gonna leave with you
You can teach me all you know
Which way will we go now on our trip to taller windows
I really don't know now
I really don't know

In the winter that you left, there was business as usual
With the same old fears and frustrations
But the word got out, it was really such a pity
But the judges and the saints and the textbook committee
Decided you should be left out - not even mentioned

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But I believed you
No need for further questioning
I'm gonna leave with you
You can teach me all you know
Which way will we go now on our trip to taller windows
I really don't know now
I really don't know

Conservatives may be inclined to think the line about the textbook committee refers to how Christ and prayer have been taken out of our schools, but Pollard was a teacher for decades and it may just be a phrase he heard. Of course, the whole song could easily be about any sort of person who comes to town or about rock music itself. In fact, one of the reasons the name Bee Thousand was settled upon as a name was that it sounded like Pete Townsend (The Who).

2 comments:

  1. "The judges and the saints and the textbook comittee
    Decided you should be left out, not even mentioned"

    Depending on the textbook comittee sounds more like Thomas Jefferson or Martin Luther King.

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