We Love the Beatles: "If We Wait" by Guided By Voices

Photo titled "Unidentified one man band. Asheville, N.C." from the Alan Lomax Collection, c. 1938

There have been few good Beatles pastiches in recent years, and it's not really a surprise. For one thing, influences naturally become diluted with time - so much pop music these days is influenced in a small way by the Beatles, but it's a minor ingredient in the soup that is hard to isolate. Even today's power pop, a genre that thrived for years on Beatles-aping, has absorbed a lot of other influences over the years. I found one example from 1996 a while back - "Jumping Fences" by Olivia Tremor Control, but I've had trouble finding any songs from the last ten years that really yell, "We love the Beatles."

I did find another song from 1996 that is an interesting twist on Beatles love. The endlessly prolific Guided By Voices, a band obviously influenced by the British Invasion, must have a "We love the Beatles" song, right? I couldn't find one on my own, but it seemed so obvious once a friend pointed out that the song must be "If We Wait", a home-recorded song sketch from the Sunfish Holy Breakfast EP. Robert Pollard's singing style makes him sound British most of the time, but in the opening lines of "If We Wait", he sounds more like Lennon than anywhere else in the GBV discography. The song is a little rough production-wise, and the weird structure is not very Beatlesy, but the melody and overall feel make "If We Wait" a real "We love the Beatles" song.

"If We Wait" by Guided By Voices