Guided by Voices: "The Unsinkable Fats Domino"

“The Unsinkable Fats Domino” is at its surface an ode to the legend who escaped Hurricane Katrina, after being presumed dead, at the ripe old age of 77, but it also works nicely as a metaphor for tenacity and longevity—qualities Robert Pollard and his newly reformed, “classic” Guided by Voices would do well to hold in high esteem. For the first time since 1996’s Under the Bushes Under the Stars, Pollard has re-joined with Tobin Sprout, Mitch Mitchell, Greg Demos, and Kevin Fennell for January’s Let’s Go Eat the Factory, a move guaranteed to excite those ’90s nostalgists who seem to be everywhere these days. It’s startling to see the band on the current cover of Magnet, a pack of disheveled grandfatherly types—but it’s also reassuring to realize just how long they’ve been doing this, and doing it well.

This: “The Unsinkable Fats Domino” is immediately, indisputably a Guided by Voices track, and that cruddy lo-fi sound, like cassette tape left under a gentle sun, sounds more refreshing than ever. “Fats Domino” excels at finding that special GBV balance between coherence and nonsense; it is in some ways telling a true-to-life, moving story, but it’s, too, just completely silly. Though it only lasts a minute and a half, there’s still enough time for several of Pollard’s compact verses and a bridge, as when Pollard sings the refrain over gritty guitars: “And the water is undrinkable / Except to the unsinkable Fats Domino.”

Despite its charms, the song is a bit sleepy and lacks the kind of timeless hook that characterizes the band’s best work on Bee Thousand (1994) and Alien Lanes (1995). “The Unsinkable Fats Domino” may not be one of those epic, classic GBV songs of yore, but it’s a start. And for a bunch of guys this old getting back together after this long, it’s pretty impressive indeed.