THE GUITAR (THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT) EP

There's a bunch of versions of this EP. I am referring to the Elektra one with Welcome to The Jungle on it. Some versions even have stuff from the I Palindrome I EP on it? Whatever.

In general, I don't find remixes very interesting. The Williamsburgh mix of The Guitar was apparently supposed to be the version of the song found on the album, but Elektra cut 8 seconds of it for some reason. The Outer Planet mixes feature interspersed clips of Richard Nixon, which thematically makes sense for Apollo 18, I guess?

Welcome to the Jungle is really fun, but also given my prior read of The Guitar, I also think this one is about death. Welcome to the jungle, Jim. Can you push me in the face again? I didn't like it when you did it last, but now I kind of miss it. You should do it again. Can you do it again? I don't know, man. Put your hand near the bug. Bugs die fast; we are so much like them, aren't we.

I Blame You is excellent and I love the melancholy feel. Both sides of the relationship here are blaming the other, kind of My Evil Twin-style, but it's more about interpersonal relationships. I love the whiny, stringy instrumentation here.

Moving to the Sun is reportedly an experiment in creating a song with only one chord, and it gives the entire thing a very "plucky" feel, to not know about music. Similar to the sonic destruction of one chord, the lyricism is largely a kind of self-destructive hell; you can't catch me.

I really like all three of these songs. I'm going to be revisiting this one a lot.