“My Valuable Hunting Knife, ” Guided By Voices
“My Valuable Hunting Knife” is a standout from Guided By Voices’ 1995 release, Alien Lanes, a 52-track marathon of magic. This compact gem opens with an unforgettable lyric: “I want to start a new life | With my valuable hunting knife.” In creating on the cusp of violently destroying, this shedding of identity structures an intriguing relationship between person and object. The narrator views the hunting knife as a romantic partner, for, “She will shine like a new girl | And I want to shout out our love to the world.” In this new life, romance is enduring; the knife will not become rusty, nor “lose its appeal over years”.
Why might anyone want to start a new life? Disappointment. Failure. Loss. Beginning anew, armed only with a hunting knife conjures the familiar fantasy of placing oneself into some self-sufficient existence where potentially painful attachments to others are avoided. Some people cut their hair, some people want to try something a little more extreme. The impetus is the same remains the same—distancing oneself from what went wrong; reinventing oneself as someone new, someone improved, someone who won’t be on the losing end again.
Robert Pollard’s vocals aren’t particularly commanding, in fact they are secondary to the instrumentals. The song begins with drums and a guitar, then, halfway through, another guitar is added to further obscure the vox. It is almost a struggle to pick out the vocal line—perhaps the words Pollard sings are intentionally underpowered because they are private and personal; a secret to be intimated, not bellowed. The inertia of the competing instruments adds to the chaotic, disordered sentiment of the track.
This is a breakup song, but the narrator still thinks of the knife as his girl. It sounds as though he’s getting over love lost, so he’s transferring his feelings to another—something else to go through life with. It almost alternates between the past relationship and what he’s looking for in the future: “Everything I think about think about | Everything I talk about talk about with you | But you don’t know | I don’t know | You don’t know | I’ll never know.” The dissolution of a relationship is difficult to process—after resentment and longing pass, confusion lingers. This song is an attempt to come to an elegiac understanding of what once was. This occupation of two perspectives is fragmented, as if trying to have moments of conversation with someone who is no longer listening.
Question: “My Valuable Hunting Knife” feels less a greeting to a new life than a farewell to the old one. What songs do you love that are more of a “goodbye” than an “hello”?
