“Tug on the Line” is about a fishing trip where something truly unexpected happens, isn’t it?

Track: “Tug on the Line”
Album: Undercard (2010)

Many years ago, a friend of mine said that he mistook the lyrics of a totally different Mountain Goats song and thought it was about actual cannibals. At the time we laughed about it, but with some distance I begin to question if that was the right response. Who was I to say that wasn’t true? There is at least one Mountain Goats song about literal cannibals, not even as a metaphor, so who could say there aren’t more?

The problem, if there is one, is with jumping off from one point and then being unable to hear anything else. If you take figurative language literally or you read into details too far you start to hear things that aren’t there. “Tug on the Line” is a peaceful, quiet song that I think makes two pretty direct references to eldritch horror. A group of people go out on a boat for a nice day of fishing and find something “shapeless and probably nameless, as of yet.” True horror comes from something you can’t name, but also something you can’t even conceive. You can’t even picture it, it’s so far beyond your understanding.

But then again, is that what’s happening? I think so, but I’m also unable to get past it to see anything else. The second verse literally says “fish that looked like monsters” but I’m open to all possibilities. At first glance, this is a straightforward, if magical, story. But it’s also just as likely the story of how you carry around dark feelings from a day. I’ll never really be sure, and I think that’s part of it.