“Thanks for the Dress” is pretty straightforward, but only after you learn what you’re looking at.

Track: “Thanks for the Dress”
Album: Hot Garden Stomp (1993)

I am truly amazed sometimes at the detail you can find online. Before you read further, especially if you don’t already know, listen to “Thanks for the Dress” and guess at the meaning first. I spent plenty of time studying the humanities and I really love ancient mythology, but I would not have been able to pick out the story of Medea, who married Jason but was betrayed and later gave Jason’s new wife a cursed dress. I can’t imagine John Darnielle thought people who listened to Hot Garden Stomp would get it, but someone left an uncited notation on the Mountain Goats Wiki that explains the reference. This seems to refer to this screening of a film in 2015. Mystery solved, if that’s what you’re in it for.

The sound quality is especially rough on this one, with the samples that open the song very loud and shocking. This does work with the song and it puts you in the right headspace, but still, your experience may be impacted. I started this project years ago primarily motivated by a desire to go through every song, even the ones I didn’t spend much time with during normal listening. One such song was always “Thanks for the Dress.” I can see both sides of the argument about researching meaning in that it is less mysterious now that I see the code but also that it takes on so much more meaning. I’d never say anyone who held either position was wrong, but the title is so much more delicious when you imagine the shift in meaning just a little while later.