JPF Home Page Forums Lyric and MP3 Feedback MP3 Feedback Forum Officer pilcher

Very enjoyable outing.

My free-associative rambly thoughts on the lyric...

"Pilcher," being archaic for a contemptable person, is the perfect name for the police officer who seems to be working the "marijuana beat" and seems, to the singer at least, the type willing to plant drugs ("plant your bag") to bust kids or at least do lots of spying on them. All told in a very allusive BeatIe-esque way, for sure. That and "mod squad" and of course the music, firmly makes this a love letter to the Late Sixties generally, and The Beatles specifically.

I like the switch from "plant your bag" to "want your bag" cuz with the latter rather anthemic "we don't want your bag" we read "bag" as "line of work" and feel "we see your (Pilcher's) hypocrisy and don't want to BE that, ourselves." All this seems to come through, despite the allusive, psychedelic presentation, and that's a tough balancing act to achieve.

I am only a little underwhelmed by the chorus lyric, but it does make my brain explode with images of Pilcher, popping in and out of churches, cars, the family bathroom window, to hilarious effect, like in some lost old Terry Gilliam animation: Pilcher becoming the "what's wrong with this picture" in a sequence of photographs, whereupon closer look, you can see he's right there, blending in, like a human piece of camouflage. But the chorus is the only part in the song actually lacking in any imagery, per se. And that's probably why it works to some extent, because it's very different, content-wise, from the verses, and makes my imagination kick in more and work a little harder to imagine where Pilcher might've been, indeed...

Anyway, free-associate thought, that's all...

Oh, btw, that photo of you on your Bandcamp page, bottom right, the one half in shadow...I had this (silly and/or amusing) thought, "Mac could moonlight fronting a Tom Jones cover band."

Mike