506. Red Choral Diamond Spray

Alex Russell Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg, , , , , , ,

Two characters find a moment of peace before a stormy future in “Red Choral Diamond Spray.”

Track: “Red Choral Diamond Spray”
Album: Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg (1995)

If you can explain the title to “Red Choral Diamond Spray” you can solve a mystery I am not able to solve. Red coral, spelled differently, is a type of jewelry, often used with diamonds. That’s as far as I can get. Inscrutable title aside, this is a story John Darnielle tells elsewhere in Mountain Goats songs. People leave one place and arrive at another one. They fear the change, but they fear what it says about each of them and their relationship even more. “We will never see Ireland again,” they say, but places in Mountain Goats songs are about much more than geographic locations.

The vocals are almost a whisper and the guitar is so gentle here, especially following songs that are angrier, if not sadder. The use of physical locations to represent people you cannot become again is one thing, but the plucking here really tells you more than that. For me, the best moment of “Red Choral Diamond Spray” is the voice crack over “add the distances between them all.” This is one where I’d recommend the “not fixed” version over the pitch-corrected track, because there’s an almost sweetness to this version that I like. These two characters are not headed for better days and they are explicitly mourning the loss of who they once were. That’s not sweet, obviously, but they have each other as they look back. That’s something, which the tone here reminds us even if the lyrics insist it’s downhill from here.

8 thoughts on “506. Red Choral Diamond Spray”

      • Can’t reply to your answer below. I wonder how I’m just now encountering your site. I’m your typical tMG nerd who consumes anything and everything. And yet I missed this site. I see you’ve been at this seven years. Are you sad it’s coming to an end? Also, how did you choose the order?

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      • I originally randomized it when I started years ago. Since then there have been a few new ones and that’s what’s left. I’ve met some great folks over the years doing this, I’m a little bittersweet on ending it but that’s why I’m doing the extra tracks. I figure I have a few months left.

        I am hoping my site is what you find if you love a rarely spoken about Goats song, so there’s always something. Even if your favorite song is a weird one, at least there’s something.

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      • Well done. This is an amazing feat, and you’re leaving behind an amazing resource. So many things to love about tMG, but perhaps the best is … I’ve yet to run out of new songs discover. Your site is a testament to that. Just today I heard “An Inscription at Salonae” for the first time and fell in love. Is JD the most prolific songwriter of all time? I wonder….

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    • This album isn’t officially released; John Darnielle specifically asked anyone who listened to it to “open it up in Audacity and pitch correct it.” Listening to this specific one, otherwise, is actually the mistake!

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      • Seems to me imperfection is the central quality of tMG. Each twang and warble reminds me I’m listening to a real human being in a real room in front of a microphone (or microphone equivalent).

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