“No More Tears” is about the Black Sabbath song “No More Tears,” but it’s also about how we remember our lives.

Track: “No More Tears”
Album: Marsh Witch Visions (2017)

I’d heard the Black Sabbath song “No More Tears” but I had never seen the video until I listened to the Mountain Goats song “No More Tears.” Music videos are always a little hard to translate into a description, but it seems to follow the band playing in a nightmare world where women drown in tears. The Mountain Goats song follows Osbourne later in life watching this video and trying to make sense of how this fits into his life.

I have to be honest, I really do not like the Black Sabbath song “No More Tears” and the video is a slog. This just isn’t my genre, with a lengthy shirtless guitar solo in the middle and rhymes of “night” with “night.” I know saying something like that on a Mountain Goats blog is borderline sacrilege, but you do not need to love the source material to enjoy the Mountain Goats versions. I have no reference for metal or goth music, but I’m fascinated by John Darnielle’s take and by his passion for it. I’ve said this before, but it’s when you get really deep into an entire album about something you don’t have any interest in that you have to appreciate what the band appreciates about it more than you have to like it yourself.