Author: Alex Russell

465. No More Tears

Alex Russell Marsh Witch Visions , , , , , , ,

“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.

464. California Jam

Alex Russell Marsh Witch Visions , , , , , , ,

Ozzy Osbourne wonders how the hell he got to the California Jam in “California Jam.”

Track: “California Jam”
Album: Marsh Witch Visions (2017)

The California Jam was a music festival on April 6, 1974, where hundreds of thousands of people watched eight bands play in Ontario, California. The show was one of those “you had to be there” events, but I love the person who wrote the Wikipedia page for it who called it “one of the last original wave of rock festivals.” You could probably make a case for what they mean by that, but I think it more speaks to how people think about their own generation and the staying power of the major events of it. If you were there, or if you love any of the eight bands that played there, this was huge, significant, and what came after it could never equal it. Is that true? I don’t think it really matters if it’s true or not.

“California Jam,” the song, finds Black Sabbath taking the stage and Ozzy Osbourne considering what got them to this moment. Osbourne repeats “me and the ghosts of Birmingham,” referencing their home and the slaughterhouse life that seemed an unlikely home for a band that would play for a huge crowd in an era-defining event in California. We can picture Osbourne up there in front of that crowd, likely addled in some way or another, and Darnielle has him say “I am an oncoming train.” It’s a comparison that says a great deal about success and fear.

463. Shirtless in Hamburg

Alex Russell Marsh Witch Visions , , , , , , ,

Ozzy Osbourne wonders if it’s all going to last in “Shirtless in Hamburg.”

Track: “Shirtless in Hamburg”
Album: Marsh Witch Visions (2017)

“Shirtless in Hamburg,” for me, is entirely about the last two lines. “Snake on my chest for protection // why the hell not” is not an end to a song for most bands, but the Mountain Goats close out a story about Ozzy Osbourne with the emotion he brings to the world. Especially if you’re more familiar with Osbourne’s later demeanor but really no matter what, the man just wants to make clear that he’s not all that interested. That disinterest reads as a generalized fog now, but I think it fed the mythos of who he was during the time period we’re looking at in “Shirtless in Hamburg.”

The song is minimalist both in musicality and in subject. Osbourne is successful enough to be “making it” but still concerned with what’s coming next. “It always feels so stable // at the center of the storm” acknowledges that there is, indeed, a tremendous storm. Many of the other Black Sabbath songs in the Mountain Goats catalog look at that storm more directly, but here we just have Osbourne’s mounting dread and his resistance to that dread with glitter and amps. The experience of metal, and of touring bands in general, outwardly, is success. Inside there’s a fear that it’s all temporary or not really working, especially if you’re the kind of person who is given to those emotions about life anyway.

462. Marsh Witch Vision

Alex Russell Marsh Witch Visions , , , , , , ,

The song “Marsh Witch Vision” sets up an album about Black Sabbath with the origin story of Ozzy Osbourne.

Track: “Marsh Witch Vision”
Album: Marsh Witch Visions (2017)

“Marsh Witch Vision” sets up the very closely named Marsh Witch Visions record as the story of Ozzy Osbourne. He works at the slaughterhouse and he’s in a band. This isn’t even the only Mountain Goats song about that, but as the entirety of Marsh Witch Visions is about The Ozzman, we spent some time learning his story. A line like “do six months for burglary, get a new tattoo” feels so blasé in delivery but represents a brutal period of time. 

When Marsh Witch Visions came out in 2017 I listened to it twice and then never revisited it. I didn’t grow up with Black Sabbath outside the parts you couldn’t escape as part of the collective consciousness. I don’t listen to metal and I’m not exactly in the generation where this music brings up a feeling of nostalgia. As a result, Ozzy Osbourne is more a character that’s interesting in how he’s in the world of pop culture than he is a rock god. I get it, but I also can’t get it. This album was never going to be my favorite, but I do like the quasi-title-track “Marsh Witch Vision.” It’s a pure story, told briefly, and it gives you a lot to think about. That said, I like “Song for Black Sabbath’s Second North American Tour” a little more and it largely does the same job. Darnielle’s fascination with Osbourne has led to a dozen or more songs so far, so there’s bound to be some overlap.

461. Transcendental Youth

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , ,

The cast of the album winds down on the season and contemplates life in the song “Transcendental Youth.”

Track: “Transcendental Youth”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

John Darnielle has said that the title track from Transcendental Youth is about the feeling of a gray, sad winter in Portland. It’s also about spending time with another person in a place like that during a time when the outside world seems so hostile that it gets into how you feel about yourself. There are a lot of Mountain Goats songs that would fit this description, but the specificity of weather as a catalyst is unique.

Darnielle once told a crowd in Seattle that the Pacific Northwest winter brings this on because it’s dark and gray and people try to act like it isn’t a big thing. The Midwest doesn’t allow for this because no one can pretend a driving blizzard in twenty below weather isn’t a problem, it’s an actual disaster. I’ve only lived in climates where winter is either nothing at all (the South) or horrific (Chicago), but I can see what he means. As I’m writing this it’s very cold here, but not so cold that you eliminate going outside as a possibility. That has a certain kind of sadness to it.

The entire album seems to be about hope, for me, and “Transcendental Youth” the song is no different. It’s never been my favorite song on the album, but it really does work better in the context of the meaning behind it. Sure, the characters are wishing snow away literally, but they’re also reflecting on the things in their life that will still be there after the weather clears up.

460. In Memory of Satan

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , , ,

A narrator stays inside in multiple ways in “In Memory of Satan.”

Track: “In Memory of Satan”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

There are hundreds of religious references in Mountain Goats songs. Some of them are about literal Satan, but more often these are meant to make you think of darkness as an extreme. Even the most famous one, “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton,” is not actually about praising a literal devil. These are about not fitting in, in a way, and they’re about what you feel akin to when you go inward. Sometimes you feel like you’re forced to do that, but characters in Mountain Goats songs often feel like it’s the only rational response to the world.

“In Memory of Satan” finds someone literally inside painting, but metaphorically inside because they feel closer to the dark than to the light. “But no one screams, ’cause it’s just me // locked up in myself // never gonna get free” is extremely bleak, but the delivery lightens up the intent slightly. This is not a song about permanent darkness so much as the emotions that make it feel that way. It’s also about the idea that you can come to terms with some things being temporal, but you are going to be you forever. We leave the song on a call to a friend, which you can interpret many different ways. I’ve always felt the important takeaway here is that you should try your best to get perspective even in these locked-in moments, especially about the parts that might change and those that cannot.

459. The Diaz Brothers

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , , , ,

“The Diaz Brothers” isn’t really about the Diaz brothers, it’s about the people you never get to see.

Track: “The Diaz Brothers”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

How many times have you heard “The Diaz Brothers?” If you have been a fan of the Mountain Goats to any degree for more than about ten years as of this writing, that number is probably very high. It’s just one of those songs that you can come back to again and again. It might be one of the better choices to play for a new fan, except that you’d have to say the titular brothers are minor characters from Scarface.

Scarface is a modern classic, sure, but it’s got a weird spot in culture. The violence of the film disgusted people and the message of the film tends to get either lost or completely reversed, depending on your analysis. The Diaz brothers aren’t even in it, they’re just referenced as characters. John Darnielle was watching Scarface and his infant child smiled at the mention and thus we have this song.

As for what the characters are doing in “The Diaz Brothers,” I think you can largely hand wave it away. The point is the characters in the film don’t get any screen time, they’re just guys that matter in a cosmic sense but never show up. That idea, not the broader plot of Scarface, is what’s compelling. We aren’t the main character and neither are they, but that doesn’t mean we can’t spend a little time going deeper on what they’re doing.

458. Harlem Roulette

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , , ,

“Harlem Roulette” is more-or-less a true story, but it’s also just an incredible piece of lyrical craft.

Track: “Harlem Roulette”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

There’s a really interesting version of “Harlem Roulette” that’s worth seeing from a Pitchfork session in 2012 that you can still find online. John Darnielle describes Frankie Lymon’s story and why it led to this song (and one particular YouTube commenter gets really mad at very minor details, as they do) and why that sadness is so interesting. This version is solo, but there’s something about the emotion there that makes it worth hearing even without the depth of the studio version. I challenge you to not feel it in your throat when you hear that version of the line “leave a little mark on something, maybe.”

You don’t need anyone to explain “Harlem Roulette” to you, really. It is the story, more or less, of Frankie Lymon, but it’s also the story of what might happen to someone who might get famous and might burn too bright. You can put that on John Darnielle as a self-insert of a potential fear, but given his obsession with other figures who fit in this trope, I think it’s more likely that the story just appeals to him.

There are five or six lines in “Harlem Roulette” that I want to call out as among the best Darnielle has even written, but none more than “even awful dreams are good dreams // if you’re doing it right.” I think there might be the full story of your Mountain Goats fandom wrapped up in your explanation of that line.

457. Cry for Judas

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , , ,

“Cry for Judas” spends a little time wondering if just rewards are coming or not.

Track: “Cry for Judas”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

“Cry for Judas” is one of those songs you can absolutely enjoy without really considering too deeply. The Mountain Goats don’t have “singles” the way you’d normally think of the term, but this is a single as sure as anything the band has ever written is. It’s got to be the catchiest song with the word “baphomet” in it, at least. It’s got a music video, too, which is rare. The video is outside the scope of what we’ll talk about, but it’s one of my favorites.

You’re statistically very likely to hear this at a live show because it’s so damn catchy, but you may need to stop for a second to think about what the “this is what you get” line means, or, indeed, who it is even directed to in that moment. John Darnielle once called the messaging of “Cry for Judas” “naively hopeful.” We want people to feel bad when they make us feel bad, but that’s not something you can bank on.

The question of the narrator is an interesting one here. It’s not unique to “Cry for Judas,” but the best Mountain Goats songs have a narrator that seems to insist on one thing but obscures what they themselves have done. Here we go even deeper into the messenger and the recipient. Who is going to come out ahead, in the end? Who is going to get what they deserve, but also, who gets to make that call?

456. Lakeside View Apartments Suite

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , , ,

“Lakeside View Apartments Suite” holds the camera on some characters in Portland but doesn’t tell us what happens next.

Track: “Lakeside View Apartments Suite”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

The Mountain Goats have played “Lakeside View Apartments Suite” in Chicago, where I live, at least eight times. I’ve seen all eight of them. I’m sure there are songs like “No Children” or “This Year” that I’ve seen more often, but it was only when I looked this one up on the wiki that I realized how ubiquitous this has been over the years. There are at least three periods where the band played it four nights in a row.

It’s really an incredible song, but it feels so self-contained. I just listened to it again and it hit me the same way it did the very first time I heard it. Some songs evolve in your mind or hit you differently at different points, but “Lakeside View Apartments Suite” isn’t one of them. Live versions carry weight differently, especially during the line about throwing up in the sink. The falsetto John Darnielle rises into when delivering that line never fails to make me take specific notice.

Transcendental Youth in general feels like it has more polish than a lot of the other albums from this era of the Mountain Goats, but that may be just my take on it. It’s not better or worse as a result, but I feel similarly about “Lakeside View Apartments Suite.” When you first hear it you will picture this cast out there in Portland and you will feel, maybe, for people in your life who are similar. It’s perfectly constructed as a story right from the jump.