http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXGZ17y4Urg

“Tianchi Lake” references a being that’s mythical in our world but seems to be a normal part of the world of the Mountain Goats.

Track: “Tianchi Lake”
Album: Heretic Pride (2008)

The songs on Heretic Pride aren’t really connected. John Darnielle has said that they’re each about an obsession of his and that’s really as much as there is to go off. That isn’t much, but it’s enough for most of these. It’s certainly enough for “Tianchi Lake,” which is directly about a lake monster in China.

In the illustrated press kit that was released alongside Heretic Pride John Darnielle said “depending on whether you believe it or not, this is a true story, sort of.” That sums up the Mountain Goats’ relationship with the world of strange, mythical (maybe!) beasts. In Heaven Lake (or Tianchi) in China there supposedly exists a creature called the Lake Tianchi Monster. Some people report that it resembles a buffalo. Some say it has a human head. Some say that there are six of them and they all have wings.

In Darnielle’s song, it has the “body of a sea lion // head just like a horse.” The song is mostly a description of the lake and the monster, but there’s also an interesting commentary on how people react to it. Lots of our fear of the unknown comes from its nature as the unknown. Maybe you don’t really believe in ghosts or aliens, but maybe when you have thought about them you’ve been uncomfortable. Darnielle’s world allows for more direct interactions. The children, the preacher, and the crowd that see the monster in “Tianchi Lake” have solely positive or neutral reactions with the monster. That’s because they aren’t interacting with what might be, they’re just by a lake that has a known monster in it. The world of the Mountain Goats has monsters, yeah, but they’re less scary if you accept that as fact.