It all started with a Camper Van Beethoven bootleg. I never liked the band much way back when, but this boot is outstanding. They evidently were much better live than anything I ever heard on records. The live set from 87 included an outstanding cover of Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive," making me scratch my brain-cells trying to remember what their cover of "Pictures of Matchstick Men" sounded like.
I went to audiogalaxy and downloaded the original from Status Quo, and several other versions. Now I remember. The CVB version transposed the guitar riff to violin. That destroyed the song for me; the one string, largely one note, solo was the song's strength. The song has some bizarre metrical problems in the lyrics:
Pictures of matchstick men and youNotice how "mirages" is a bit off there? Three syllables instead of two, it screws up the meter. I noticed that the CVB version changes it to "images," eliding two of the syllables together to fix the problem. For some reason, in my head I'd been hearing fealties instead. It works metrically, and the meaning fits as well, but it's an odd word. I couldn't figure out why I was hearing that word in my head. The versions I downloaded ranged from the awful (Type O Negative with Ozzy) to the ridiculous (They Might Be Giants, in a yonky cover medley). The Slikee Boys had the best version I think, a fast punk-rock kind of thing. All the versions used either "images" or "mirages." There was another version by a band whose name I couldn't remember, that I couldn't find.
Mirages of matchstick men and you
All I ever see is them and you
I could picture the album in my head. It was red and green paisley. I bought it without a cover, and I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the band. It had the same songs on the front and back sides, and was horribly noisy because of the colored vinyl. Talked to Mike on the phone, and when I mentioned the name of the song (without describing my quandary) he exclaimed: Seeing Eye Gods!
I had been unable to find the record in my collection until I got this bit. When you have as many records as I do, you're sunk unless you at least know the name of the band. I dragged it out to listen to it today, and sure enough it's "fealties of matchstick men and you." Until today, I had no idea who this band was: Brett Gurewitz, founder of Epitaph records and member of Bad Religion. That explains the somewhat esoteric word choice. Damn my brain is such an odd place, with bits of this and that flying about. I knew I didn't invent hearing that word in the song! I scored another CVB boot from 88, and sure enough the song was in their set. Perhaps they copped the idea of covering it from Seeing Eye Gods. Funny how things work sometimes; but it could just be a coincidence—after all, the record is a real rarity.
