And I Don't (So Now, I Do) - Robert Pollard and Doug Gillard - Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department - 1999

So a friend of mine wrote me to correct me on one of my blog postings:

"Dude…
The Romans never conquered the Greeks. The Romans actually defeated the Macedonians in 197 BC, at the battle of Cynoscephalae.
(I know, I know -- I'm being a snot. Bite me.)
They had to do that because the Macedonians had come out of the north and conquered Greece in 338 BC, defeating Athens in the battle of Chaeronea under Phillip II and his son Alexander (who later grew up to be Colin Farrell). The descendants of one of Alexander's generals ruled Greece for 150 years, and not nicely.
Before that, the Greeks spent about 100 years tearing at each other likes rats in a sack, in a series of civil wars (Athens vs. Sparta, Sparta vs. Thebes, Thebes vs. various hillbillies).
The Romans were actually seen as liberators and guardians of the peace (think us with England and France, right after WWII). They even tried to withdraw from Greece several times, only to have different Greek political factions keep pulling them back in to settle weird little feuds (think modern Iraq). And the Romans were way better at math and engineering.
All this was under the Roman Republic, 200 years before the Empire.
I tried to let the Patton quote go, BUT NOW YOU'RE KILLING ME!
And I'm never drinking tea near you again.
Regards. "

So there you go.

This track is one from one of Pollard's better solo efforts, though it also started a trend that would never again be a good thing for Bob. The trick works like this. Someone else gives him a tape of music they wrote. Bob then writes and sings the music. It worked with Gillard cause he was already a GBVer at the time...but some of the other attempts at this have been far less succesful. One of the great dissapointments of my life was the Mac McCaughan + Bob Pollard collaboration Go Back Snow Ball...it could have been awesome.