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Dirty Water

By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Earthquake Glue In the post for “Apology In Advance,” I mentioned that there are certain songs from Earthquake Glue that never really “did it” for me, and “Dirty Water” had been one of them for a long time. Obviously, I loved those harmonized guitar lead lines towards the end […]

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Gray Spat Matters

By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Space Gun “Gray Spat Matters” from Space Gun is a very straightforward rock song. Constant driving rhythm, power chords, and a steady beat throughout. It’s been holding its place in the band’s live set since its release, and I’m hoping it stays for a long time. You need to be […]

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Bunco Men

By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Mirrored Aztec, Suitcase – Failed Experiments and Trashed Aircraft I used to write songs. After a while, it started to feel pointless. Robert Pollard was writing songs like “Bunco Men” and then not even releasing them on albums; we didn’t get to hear most of them until the first […]

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Hudson Rake

By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Space Gun “Hudson Rake” is a spooky-sounding song, and its lyrics’ origins have an eeriness to them as well. Apparently, Bob Pollard had had a dream where he was being carried over someone’s shoulder. Another person passed and remarked, “There was a terrible accident last night,” at which point […]

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Jon The Croc

By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Class Clown Spots A UFO As much as I’m a fan of the non-traditional chords that populate so much of Robert Pollard’s music, I also love when he keeps it simple. “Jon The Croc” is an example of Pollard using conventional chords and a standard rock song structure to […]

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Know Me As Heavy

By: Guided By Voices Appears on: English Little League There’s nothing I don’t love about “Know Me As Heavy” from English Little League. There’s a great combined vocal performance by Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout, some of Pollard’s trademark cryptic lyrics, and also a sampling of some of his various guitar songwriting techniques at play. This […]

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Christmas Girl

By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Let It Beard When I create these guitar tablature posts, the tablature and chord diagrams are all made from shapes and tables in Google Slides, so I start by copying a song from a previous post that used similar tablature or chord diagrams and modify as needed. As it turns […]

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Life Is Beautiful

By: Robert Pollard with Doug Gillard Appears on: Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department “Life Is Beautiful” has a guitar melody that’s really fun to play and built around an open string drone technique. The fourth and third strings will ring open on the D and G notes, respectively, while the note on the […]

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