In 1995-96 Bill''s life went through a huge upheaval and you have to feel for the guy. I'm sure he's the sort of person who would commiserate with anyone fallen on hard times, so we should do the same for him.
Bill was dating Cindy Dall and she and Will Oldham had an affair that turned Bill's life upside down. Of course he had dated Cindy'a best friend Lisa Carver before moving onto Cindy, but Bill didn't take the same thing happening to him with equanimity. We actually see him making 2 LPs and 1 EP about the affair, and then on future LP's still referring to it.
At this stage Will Oldham was dating Dianne Belino, who he had met when he went to Brown University on Rhode Island.
Will and Cindy both made records with no artist name, similar to The Artist Formerly Known As Prince. Cindy's record also didn't have a title. Will's title was Arise, Therefore. Will's favourite movies at the time were about illicit affairs — Unfinished Piece For Mechanical Piano and Red Firecracker Green Firecracker.
Bill put out an EP called Kicking A Couple Around, the title being a play on words referring to the expression "kicking a couple of ideas around" and also to the affair that was kicking he and Cindy as a couple around.
The first song Your New Friend is another song in the familiar territory of Bill's girlfriend cheating on him. Bill has made an unusually large number of songs about his girlfriends cheating on him over the years. Like the songs on Wild Love it emphasises that their apartment is too small for them to live in. It refers to a Chinese screen and Cindy's LP had a picture of a Chinese goddess on. Back In School is about someone going back to college I think. He wants to tell someone he is back in school but he thinks its the wrong thing to say at a club or party, and then the song focuses on Bill's communication difficulties “Well I’m trying to learn your language but it's like a fly learning how to bark”. He then sings about kissing this woman to erase the smile on her face which is a kind of violent idea. I Break Horses goes to the theme of women being horses he rides like Chosen One on Julius Caesar. It talks about how Bill doesn’t like to focus on his girlfriend’s needs “I rode out on a broken horse who told me that she never felt so old, She asked me if I’d feed her And ride her now and then” and then he says “no I break horses, I don’t tend to them”. He blames the women like in Be Hit, saying they want this mistreatment “They seem to come to me asking to be broken, They seem to run to me”. It goes on to be about how he is uncomfortable with sex in long term relationships, and that he is a loner “tonight I am swimming to my favourite island and I don’t want to see you swimming behind”. The last song is another song about him being a loner who does not feel like part of society. It is about him walking at night and looking into other people’s houses “the orange glow of a strangers living room Looks so much warmer than mine”. It is hard to know how Cindy felt about these records about her. After Untitled she only made one other LP, Sound Restores Young Men. Cindy died in 2012.
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