Four Seasons of Robert Pollard

By Willie Plaschke

You know the price: electric bill. The wintertime is blue, cold, and grey. Lovers leave, flowers fade…business as usual, with the same old fears and frustrations. I know that when we have to contend with the bitter winds, it’s not your thing to be patient like this: we’re freezing and staring at all of this snow. Just remember that we’ll all be together when the kingdom comes in the spring. My love brings everything. Can you hear the wild oak crack?

All the while in tribes I played, survived and prayed to be free. Finally, one pushed its way into the chamber: dogs barking, the sun flashing. The urgency and restlessness of spring …around each cozy corner, talking in rhymes, between each cowslip, tulip, and hyacinth. If you ride into a jungle of sunflower stalks that stretch up like children and claw at the wildflower sun, you’ll find someone waiting there…

June salutes you with her oncoming glare! It’s a street party, and the heat is insane. Like sun-baked cakes on northern lakes, just lay out the fat ones in the full sun. Somehow waiting…sometimes craving…dear one, summer’s almost over. But, of course…I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know.

In autumn, great days are becoming. In the mellow acoustics of fall, you can send an SOS from the pockets of your sleeves; old hearts and keen animals appear clearly to the eye. When the autumn came, the clouds descended: it’s so cherry over the big river. So cherry red, as smokestacks bellow stars, and Catherine waves farewell to October. Enter winter. You know the price.

Winter

1. Poor Old Pine — (Psycho and the Birds)
2. Smothered in Hugs — (Guided By Voices)
3. What Begins on New Year’s Day — (Guided By Voices)
4. I’m Cold — (Guided By Voices)
5. Get to Know the Ropes — (Guided By Voices)
6. Winter Comes to Those Who Pray — (Robert Pollard)
7. Frostman — (Guided By Voices)
8. The Winter Cows — (Guided By Voices)
9. All of This Will Go — (Guided By Voices)

Spring

10. Picnic Drums — (Robert Pollard)

11. The Future Is In Eggs — (Guided By Voices)

12. Look, It’s Baseball — (Guided By Voices)

13. Girls of Wild Strawberries — (Guided By Voices)

14. Spring Tigers — (Guided By Voices)

15. Sunflower Wildman — (Circus Devils)

Summer

16. June Salutes You! — (Guided By Voices)

17. Full Sun (Dig the Slowness) — (Robert Pollard)

18. Street Party — (Guided By Voices)

19. Mary and the Summer — (Guided By Voices)

20. Pan Swimmer — (Guided By Voices)

21. Acorns & Orioles — (Guided By Voices)

22. Rose in Paradise — (Circus Devils)

Fall

23. Catherine from Mid-October — (Boston Spaceships)

24. Eye Mask of Leaves — (Circus Devils)

25. Smokestack Bellowing Stars — (The Takeovers)

26. Flings of the Waistcoat Crowd — (Robert Pollard)

27. Johnny Appleseed — (Guided By Voices)

28. Harvest Whale — (Teenage Guitar)

29. Fall All Over Yourself — (Guided By Voices)

30. Dogwood Grains — (Nightwalker)