My Top 1000 Songs #168: Erica's Word

A wonderful pop nugget from Paisley Underground-adjacent indie pop act Game Theory, off 1985's Big Shot Chronicles. It almost feels like the late Scott Miller is teaching a master class in pop music construction, clinically ticking off the basic building blocks:

• Nifty chord progression with some unexpected changes? Check.
• Jangly guitars? Check.
• Snappy snare drum echo? Check.
• Gentle verses breaking loose into a triumphant, endlessly hummable chorus? Check.
• Relentlessly clever rhymes? Check.
• Rousing solo (to my ears a callback to Nick Lowe's comparably artful "So It Goes")? Check.

And, yeah, Miller's arty tendencies are here, particularly in the almost Stipe-like verses, hopelessly vague and intermittently indecipherable; but then you hit the chorus and it's sing-along time. "Erica's word, taking me clear and leaving me blurred. Knocking me down from second to third." We've been there, buddy.