Who is the World's Undisputed #1 fan of 'Spud Infinity' by Big Thief?

Z S

ha ha i was trying to pick a song from this album to send a friend

inevitably

it was

this one

lovely record

which of these various identities are you most deeply in when you are geeking out on the song, km/zs/ztbd?

Based on your enthusiasm I hopped on the Spud Infinity train and also learned to play it last night! If you ever find yourself in Western Mass we can have a hoedown.

I do have one problem with it, which is that the lyrical meter is identical or close to it to Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah so I sometimes find myself segueing into verses of that song (still to the tune of Spud). As the world's #1 undisputed fan, anything you'd prescribe?

what’s it gonna taaaaaaake

Faaack, no way to choose. This poll is too hard.

I heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the lord
A lot more than my pronunciation of knish did, TBH
What’s it gonna taaaaaaaaaake?

xpost

it is definitely a ztbd song for me right now, haha. i'm usually not so enthusiastic about songs with an "uplifting" message but i appreciate someone with so much talent taking the time to craft such a good message into a short song (that IS EXACTLY THE CORRECT LENGTH, #1 FAN) that is so catchy. it's wonderful to walk around with this in your head

what's it gonna taaaaaaaaaake

truly though, i like those extra two beats on the taaaaaaaake, and when you play and sing it on guitar, it feels right. just like the line about the "dancing with just one finger" (which i think might also be a reference to the mouth harp on the song - i genius annotated that but the scholars have not agreed) goes on for a few beats too long, it just feels right when you're singing and playing it. i love those kinds of idiosyncrasies in songs, the ones that don't seem like an "a-ha!" but instead those that feel natural. for some reason i keep thinking "everybody's got their unique pad thai or scrambled eggs" recently, and the extra beats on taaaaaaaake and dancing with one finger are like how lenker makes her pad thai

lavator do you play it with the capo?

thus far I've just been playing it open in the wrong key (not along with a recoridng). but would most definitely use a capo before i would think about messing with the open chords and getting into barres. it's a campfire country singalong, it's designed to be simple. also as per the convo on the main album thread, there ain't no shame whatsoever in capos.

not spud infinity-related, but one thing i have never quite been able to get comfortable with is open tunings - i love the way they sound but just feel lost without being able to revert to my familiar chord shapes. also retuning is a pain in the ass, i only have one guitar. but maybe these awesome lenker songs will compel me to level up a bit.

yeah, i feel guilty because i think i introduced the capo controversy just by mentioning this funny comment on the quora link. i was searching for a way to make a makeshift capo because mine is at a practice space, and came upon this:

https://www.quora.com/What-can-I-substitute-for-a-guitar-capo

J0seph Ba1dassarre, former Professor of Music, Retired at Boise State University (1975-2010)
Answered 2 years ago · Author has 1.4K answers and 153.7K answer views
Learn all your bar chords and use your index finger. I’ve played guitar for 63 years and don’t use a capo.

285 views

lol

I Don't Even Own a Capo

also i know when people use that formulation (incl here) they/we are referencing "I don't even own a TV", but I always hear it in my head in the voice of Mike Myers saying "I don't even own a gun, let alone the many guns that would necessitate a gun rack"

Just thought I'd get that off my chest

I listen to Radio K in my work truck and this song plays like 3 times an hour

that is to say, which of the poll options is a Radio K DJ?

i used to be a DJ at a college radio station. this was Z S era, KCOU CoMo 88.1 fm 2-6am shift - the one where people die while listening to your drones and driving off the highway. in my imagination. in reality, this one guy calling every week to request honky tonk women. i hated that song during this era. i love it now, posting as karl malone and living as zach tbd. z s died, i killed him off. take all of this into account when deciding which version of me is the #1 fan of spud infinity, please, sorry

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Zach won!

I don't know who you're talking about! ilx user Karl Malone won! now on to Scholar to make the annotation official. aaaaaaahahahaha yesss

Pretty sweet that you now have a bona fide official internet poll to reference if anyone tries to <citation needed> you on your title, km

oh, i already cited it, just waiting to see what the community thinks

oh god...there are votes on it. one up, one down!

or wait, that was on another one of mine. so far my reference just sits down there, unaddressed by the community, and thus, undisputed

https://i.imgur.com/rkrq8So.png

what's it gonna taaaeeeeeeeeee

what's it gonna taaaeeeeeeeeee

whatsa gonna taaaaaaaaaaae

eeeeeeeeeeee

when it comes to Bud the Spud fans though i take the knish

I dunno if I was expecting it to be the #1 track on Big Thief's Spotify page but... well it surprises me that is has less than 3 million streams since I'm pretty sure I have played it at least a million times

what's it gonna taaaeeeeeeeeee

― maf you one two (maffew12), Saturday, March 12, 2022 9:42 AM (five months ago) bookmarkflaglink

what's it gonna taaaeeeeeeeeee

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, March 12, 2022 9:48 AM (five months ago) bookmarkflaglink

whatsa gonna taaaaaaaaaaae

― the world's undisputed #1 fan of 'Spud Infinity' (Karl Malone),

aeeeeeeeeeeeek

Crunched the numbers again this morning, I am the world's undisputed #7 fan of this song.

I’ve gone down in the rankings. They took my ILX username and everything

“Father Time is the biggest thief that's out there, and you can't get that back." - Karl Malone