This is a great one. Undoubtedly a song in the pantheon of Superchunk hits. Its a simple song, really, just a few chords not played very fast. The guitar lead is cute at the outset: catchy, easy to get into, hypnotic. But what makes the song great is when the singing starts, at about (0:15), because all the loudness drops away leaving just the bare sketch of the lead guitar part from the beginning, some tappy tap on the drums and HOWLING on the vocals. And the lyrics are totally moving, even if I don't know exactly what they are. He spits out the last few lines and its awesome: punk rock without the sort of affected toughness of "What Do I?" Its chilling, somehow, this thin frustrated voice yelling out "IT IS STUPID, IT IS..." and then back into the rocking guitar parts. Its a good d/Q part for sure. Then it returns into the singing, basically the same as before but with some little changes: more feedback squeals in the guitar, some more cracks in Mac's voice as he sings, and the bass is in there the second time around too. These additional little things are subtle, but they definitely increase the intensity in a kind of invisible way.
Then its back to the intro part, with some more singing and then the BIG FINISH. The BIG FINISH is one of the principal components of Superchunk songwriting. In this case its a different guitar riff, a VOCAL solo, a GUITAR solo and general rocking out. GREAT ENDING. The guitar solo also deserves some props because its all over the place and then settles into the these great staccato stabs during the fadeout...this song has a fadeout! How funny is that!
Song structure is: ABABAC. This is a great example of a song that covers a lot of ground in a short amount of time without doing anything that seems really crazy. One of my faves!
BTW, this is about the Tossing Seeds version of the song!
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