Words by Hannah Clemens//Illustration by Johnnie Cluney

In the year and a half since Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin first released “Broom” I have often wondered why the album is only twenty-nine minutes long. Half the length of most of their shows, “Broom” still manages to contain more jubilation, anxiety, and woe than any other album I bought in 2005. And now that SSLYBY have signed with Polyvinyl Records and rereleased a vastly superior remastered “Broom,” I think I’ve finally figured out why it’s so short. Twenty-nine minutes is about how long it takes to drive through the band’s hometown, Springfield, Missouri.

I don’t live in Springfield anymore, but I did for eight years. It’s a small town and pretty much anyone who goes to college there knows someone who knows a member of Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. I’ve met and socialized with three of them myself, gone to a few dozen shows, and paid them far too little to play at my birthday party—but enough bragging. The thing about SSLYBY is that they aren’t just from Springfield; Springfield is in their songs. “I Am Warm and Powerful” and “Let’s Get Tired” (a bonus track on the vinyl edition of “Broom”) would never have existed without that city, where everything closes at 10 p.m. and restless teenagers are forced to get high and wander aimlessly. And without Springfield, songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Phil Dickey would never have met Gwyn, the inspiration for almost every song on “Broom” (particularly the blissful closer “Gwyneth”).

Listening to “Broom” evokes a dozen mental images of Springfield, like the Pineapple Whip stand with the mechanical hula girl on top that caused accidents on the road because people couldn’t look away from her hypnotically swishing grass skirt. It makes me grateful that I encountered this band when I did, not so I can say I knew them when, but rather because they’re marvelous and everyone should have a chance to know them. It makes me feel simultaneously homesick and glad that I left Springfield when I did, because eventually their growing fame will prevent SSLYBY from performing in places like the Outland Ballroom or a grassy front yard at Artsfest every spring.

Whether or not you’ve been to Springfield, listen to “Broom” and
you’ll begin to understand the place. It’s at once accessible and
introverted, self-contained and complex, intimate and remote. And for both Springfield and “Broom,” one final descriptor applies: they both go by far too quickly.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
SSLYBY Daytrotter Session
Polyvinyl Records