I believe “Liquid Indian” is a reference to India Ink and the song speaks to the oppression often found in official printed documents — “seals of approval”, “coupons and stamps”. They’re the documents of the “perfect ones” imposing order. The speaker in this song prefers a more malleable world – the “perversion” of pictures in motion, quivering soft clay and its possibilities of shape. But alas, the official will is imposed, the rejection arrives, the cease-and-desist, the figurative cramps we feel due to those messages written in “Liquid Indian”. The song presses this irony in the smoothly flowing “Liquid Indian” chorus and the halting angular verse sections. Another gem from GBV.
I believe “Liquid Indian” is a reference to India Ink and the song speaks to the oppression often found in official printed documents — “seals of approval”, “coupons and stamps”. They’re the documents of the “perfect ones” imposing order. The speaker in this song prefers a more malleable world – the “perversion” of pictures in motion, quivering soft clay and its possibilities of shape. But alas, the official will is imposed, the rejection arrives, the cease-and-desist, the figurative cramps we feel due to those messages written in “Liquid Indian”. The song presses this irony in the smoothly flowing “Liquid Indian” chorus and the halting angular verse sections. Another gem from GBV.