“Going to Morocco” is mysterious and strange, but the feeling is one you’ll instantly connect with.

Track: “Going to Morocco”
Album: Martial Arts Weekend (2002)

It’s a little bit of a cheat to talk about another song in the space designated for “Going to Morocco,” but I must insist you listen to the back-to-back of “Going to Morocco” and “Carmen Cicero” from this live show in October of 2000. This is the quintessential version of both of them and they deserve to be connected as an experience. “Carmen Cicero” is famously live-only with no released version intended and I’ll be a little grandiose here and say that version is one of the best versions of any Mountain Goats (or Mountain Goats-adjacent) song, with an extra-intense (even for him) John Darnielle demanding the audience sing the chorus by saying “every last one of you, right now.”

“Going to Morocco” is connected to “Carmen Cicero” very loosely, and really this is just me stretching but go along with it, because it’s another really loud, really intense series of shouts. You cannot crack the meaning and maybe shouldn’t try. Segues like “if you won’t, I will” into “but there are no wolves around here” resist you at every turn. I am hesitant to say any song John Darnielle even has a hand in doesn’t mean anything, but I think “Going to Morocco” is more about the feeling than anything else. You can spend a lot of time reading about what a “guttural stop” is in linguistics or you can just let the guitar wash over you. I recommend the latter.