Noted at first for its lo-fi aesthetic and typically Portastudio four-tracks-to-cassette production methods, Guided by Voices' music revealed influences from post-British Invasion garage rock, psychedelic rock, progressive rock, punk rock and post-punk. The band also garnered much attention for its prolific output, with a seemingly endless stream of releases. Most songs are in the two-minute range, but many are even shorter; often they end abruptly or are intertwined with odd and homemade sound effects. Some even start with songs fully incorporated on earlier albums, like how "Ester's Day" from Bee Thousand has a snippet of "At Odds With Dr. Genesis" from King Shit and the Golden Boys.
Formed in Dayton, Ohio in the early 1980s, Guided by Voices began their career as a bar band working the local scene. As lineups and day-jobs shifted, however, Pollard moved the band towards a studio-only orientation. Guided by Voices' recording career began with a stream of self-financed, independent releases. With only a few hundred copies of each album being pressed, these tended to circulate only among the band members' family and friends.
With the release of the ultra-limited album Propeller in 1992 (of which only 500 copies were pressed, each with a unique, handmade cover), Guided by Voices for the first time gained some recognition outside of their hometown. This was due in part to gaining fans in the college rock circuit and bands such as Sonic Youth, R.E.M. and The Breeders. New York City and Philadelphia were host to Guided by Voices' return to the live stage (and first shows outside of Ohio) in 1993. At this time, the always-fluid Guided by Voices lineup coalesced around the core of Pollard, guitarists Tobin Sprout and Mitch Mitchell (not to be confused with Jimi Hendrix's drummer), bassist Dan Toohey, and drummer Kevin Fennell. Sprout, who was briefly featured in an early-'80s version of the band, had re-joined circa Propeller and soon became Pollard's primary musical foil, in addition to contributing several of his own songs to the band's catalog. 1993 also saw the release of Vampire on Titus, as well as the Fast Japanese Spin Cycle and Static Airplane Jive EPs. Over the next year, the band began to receive national media exposure from sources such as Spin magazine.
In 1994, after culling both new songs and reams of archival recordings from GBV's history, Pollard delivered the indie landmark Bee Thousand via Scat Records, with a distribution deal through indie label Matador Records. Soon, the band officially signed with Matador, concurrent with Pollard and his bandmates finally retiring from their day jobs to work in music full-time. The band surprised early audiences accustomed to the generally shambling, lo-fi and collage-like quality of the records with their energetic live show, featuring Pollard's homegrown rock theatrics (consisting of karate-kicks, leaps, and Roger Daltrey-inspired mic-twirling), Mitch Mitchell's windmilling and chain smoking, sometime bassist Greg Demos' striped pants, a never-ending barrage of tunes that all seemed to clock in under 90 seconds, and prodigious alcohol consumption all around.
Their true Matador debut came in 1995 with Alien Lanes, which, despite a five-figure recording allowance, was constructed out of home-recorded snippets on the cheap. The band's underground following continued to grow, with notices coming from mainstream sources such as MTV and Rolling Stone. After sessions for a concept album entitled The Power of Suck were aborted, the band assembled Under the Bushes Under the Stars out of their first 24-track studio sessions, recorded with Kim Deal and Steve Albini among others, in 1996. However, the strain of heavy touring would ultimately lead to the demise of the "classic lineup", with Sprout deciding to retire from the road in order to focus on raising his first child, his painting, and his solo musical career. Sprout and Pollard marked the occasion by releasing simultaneous solo albums on the same day in 1996: Sprout's Carnival Boy and Pollard's Not in My Airforce, with each making a guest appearance on the other's album. Pollard maintained an active, parallel solo and side project career alongside GBV releases for the remainder of that band's existence. These records were primarily self-released. Because GBV alumni were regularly featured, and songs from these albums were frequently included in GBV setlists, they are informally considered to be part of the GBV canon. Also in 1995, the band contributed the song "Sensational Gravity Boy" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Bothered produced by the Red Hot Organization.
Pollard created a new incarnation of Guided by Voices with Cleveland glam rockers Cobra Verde in 1997. The following album Mag Earwhig!, combined a new hard-rocking swagger with classic lo-fi fragments and one track, "Jane of the Waking Universe", that featured the classic lineup for one last time. However, after another year of rigorous touring, the "Guided by Verde" lineup split in late 1997 following Pollard's announcement in an interview that he intended to work with other musicians on the next Guided by Voices project.
Cobra Verde's Doug Gillard was tapped for yet another new Guided by Voices lineup in 1998, which also included "classic"-era bassist Greg Demos, former Breeders drummer Jim Macpherson, and eventually, former Amps/Breeders guitarist Nate Farley. Departing from Matador, this lineup (without Farley) worked with producer Ric Ocasek to create what was intended to be Guided by Voices' major label debut. Initially produced for Capitol Records, Do the Collapse was repeatedly delayed and finally released in mid-1999 on pseudo-indie label TVT. (In the UK it was released on Creation Records). Featuring a slick, heavily processed sound previously foreign to GBV albums, Do the Collapse failed to catch on at radio, and was for the most part greeted with mixed reviews.
Through touring heavily throughout 1999 and 2000, Guided by Voices' live act became legendary, with shows often stretching past the three-hour mark, and populated by an endless stream of new and classic songs, Pollard solo tracks, impromptu covers of The Who, David Bowie and The Rolling Stones, all accompanied by continuous alcohol consumption. In addition to multiple swings through the United States and Europe, 2000 saw the band's first and only visits to Australia and Japan. 2000 was capped with the release of the massive Suitcase, a four-disc, 100-song trawl through three decades worth of Pollard's enormous reserve of unreleased material. (Two more box sets of unreleased songs, Suitcase 2 and Suitcase 3, were released in October 2005 and November 2009, respectively.)
2001's Isolation Drills was recorded with Rob Schnapf, who aimed to capture the band's live sound more closely than did Ocasek. Though the album debuted in Billboard's top 200 and received higher critical notices than its predecessor, it did not achieve the sought-after radio breakthrough.
After departing from TVT in 2002, Guided by Voices returned to Matador and released Universal Truths and Cycles, a departure from the previous two radio-aspiring albums, and a return to the band's mid-90's, mid-fi aesthetic. Universal Truths producer Todd Tobias would also record the band's final two albums for Matador. 2003 saw the release of the prog-styled Earthquake Glue, followed by the anthology box set Hardcore UFOs: Revelations, Epiphanies and Fast Food in the Western Hemisphere and the greatest hits compilation Best of Guided by Voices: Human Amusements at Hourly Rates.
In 2004, Pollard announced he was disbanding Guided by Voices following the release of the Half-Smiles of the Decomposed LP, and a final farewell tour.
On November 9, 2004 Guided by Voices performed on the stage of Austin City Limits, broadcast by PBS on January 22, 2005. Their last television appearance was on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on December 2, 2004. They played the single, "Everybody Thinks I'm a Raincloud (When I'm Not Looking)". After a select round of final US shows, Guided by Voices played their final show at The Metro in Chicago on December 31, 2004. The four hour, 63-song marathon finale is documented on the DVD The Electrifying Conclusion
In June 2010, Matador Records announced that the "Classic '93-'96 Lineup" of Robert Pollard (vocals, guitar), Tobin Sprout (guitar), Mitch Mitchell (guitar), Greg Demos (bass) and Kevin Fennell (drums) would reunite to perform at the label's 21st Anniversary celebration in Las Vegas, in October of that year. A full reunion tour was subsequently announced, with the band selling out nearly every date. The tour included stops at Hoboken's Maxwell's and the Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky, two venues that the band had built a history with due to legendary shows there in the past. When asked by Spinner if there might ever be another proper GBV record Pollard said "I've thought about it sometimes but it's a very long shot," he says. "We all kind of do our own thing. I'm not completely eliminating the possibility."
The band played their "last ever" performance at North Carolina's Hopscotch Music Festival in September 2011, however later that month the band announced that they would be releasing a new album, Let's Go Eat the Factory on 1 January 2012. The band released a second post-reformation LP, Class Clown Spots a UFO, on June 12, 2012. A third, The Bears for Lunch, followed in November. Another album, English Little League, was released in 2013. In a July 2013 interview with Magnet Magazine, Pollard stated that English Little League could be the final GBV album. However, in September, a fifth reunion record, Motivational Jumpsuit, was confirmed for release on Guided By Voices Inc. and Fire Records in February 2014. A sixth reunion album, Cool Planet, has also been announced for May 19, 2014.
In 2016, Guided by Voices (lineup at the time only Robert Pollard) released their 22nd album, Please Be Honest. Pollard played every instrument on the album. In 2017, the band, with another new lineup, released their 23rd album, August by Cake. This lineup has since recorded 16 studio albums, with their newest, Nowhere to Go But Up, released on November 24th, 2023.
Beat Your Wings
Guided by Voices Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Reveal its secrets,
Speak to us,
Of many things.
In the morning when she comes,
The bird who wakes you with her song,
She'll beat her wings.
She will rise again.
And ride a perfect high,
And find a sweet seed growing,
And never know why,
She sees anything.
One more inch,
For no more reason,
Go without you even yet,
And death you sing.
Pass it by with once discovered,
Time to stop wasting time,
What will you bring,
You will rise again.
And ride a perfect high,
And find a sweet seed growing,
And never know why,
You hear anything.
Bless the sunlight,
Grab the stakes and make you over,
Save the bullet,
Price the sandman's head,
This time do not roll over,
Beat your wings.
Yeah hear them sing
Of up there in the glimpse of silence
Up there.
When the days have come to pass
Our journey broken gone at last,
Well beat our wings,
Shadows take familiar skin,
So recognize them don't give in,
Well beat our wings,
We will rise again.
And ride a perfect high,
And find a sweet seed growing,
And never know why,
We feel anything,
Yeah anything,
Yeah beat your wings.
The lyrics of "Beat Your Wings" by Guided by Voices is a poetic piece that can be interpreted in many ways. It talks about a bird who beats its wings in the morning, symbolizing a fresh start, and the possibility of new beginnings. The wind that scatters dust refers to the idea of letting go of the past and embracing change. The song highlights the idea of rising again, of finding a sweet seed growing, and never knowing why.
As the song progresses, the lyrics talk about passing things by, discovering things once, and not wasting time anymore. The idea of beat your wings comes up again, and it signifies the importance of taking flight and soaring high. The lyrics urge the listener to embrace new experiences and not to let anything get in the way of personal growth.
Towards the end of the song, the lyrics talk about the passing of time, our journey coming to an end, and the inevitability of death. However, there is still hope as we beat our wings and rise again. The song ends on a positive note, highlighting the importance of recognizing shadows and beating our wings to take flight.
Overall, "Beat Your Wings" is a song that inspires the listener to embrace change, rise again, and take flight towards new beginnings.
Line by Line Meaning
Will the wind that scatters dust,
Will nature give us answers to our questions?
Reveal its secrets,
Will it uncover hidden secrets?
Speak to us,
Will it communicate with us?
Of many things.
Of topics and ideas that are beyond our grasp.
In the morning when she comes,
When we wake up to a new day,
The bird who wakes you with her song,
The singing bird that awakens us,
She'll beat her wings.
Will rise and take flight.
She will rise again.
The bird will live another day and have new experiences.
And ride a perfect high,
To reach new heights and find success,
And find a sweet seed growing,
Discover something that will flourish and grow,
And never know why,
Without necessarily understanding the reason why something is happening.
She sees anything.
The bird experiences the world around her without judgement or preconception.
One more inch,
The smallest step or effort can bring us closer to our goals.
For no more reason,
Without a specific or significant purpose.
Go without you even yet,
Move forward and progress even if you do not feel entirely prepared.
And death you sing.
Despite the potential for negativity or defeat, continue to push forward and maintain a positive mindset.
Pass it by with once discovered,
After making a discovery, do not dwell on it and instead move on to find more.
Time to stop wasting time,
It is important to stop procrastinating and utilize time effectively.
What will you bring,
Consider what you have to offer or contribute to a situation.
You will rise again.
After a setback, you will regain momentum and continue forward.
Bless the sunlight,
Appreciate and value the good things in life and the world around us.
Grab the stakes and make you over,
Take control of your circumstances and create opportunities for yourself.
Save the bullet,
Do not waste valuable resources or energy.
Price the sandman's head,
Place a high value on your dreams and aspirations.
This time do not roll over,
Do not succumb to defeat or failure, and instead fight back.
Beat your wings.
Take action and soar towards success.
Yeah hear them sing
Listen to the sounds of success and positivity around you.
Of up there in the glimpse of silence
Of opportunities or potential success that are not yet clear, but exist nonetheless.
When the days have come to pass
When time has passed and we are nearing the end of our journey,
Our journey broken gone at last,
With our journey complete and finished,
Well beat our wings,
We will continue to fight and work towards our goals.
Shadows take familiar skin,
The things that used to bring you down will feel like old and familiar problems.
So recognize them don't give in,
Acknowledge the problems but do not let them hinder your progress.
We will rise again.
Like the bird, we will experience new successes and opportunities.
And feel anything,
Experience all emotions and feelings, both positive and negative, and use them to grow and learn.
Yeah anything,
Experience everything and use it all to your advantage.
Yeah beat your wings.
Take action and push forward towards success and fulfillment.
Lyrics © OBO APRA/AMCOS
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