Author: Alex Russell

335. Daniel 12:8 (third)

Alex Russell The Life of the World to Come , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Two versions of “Daniel 12:8 (third)” offer slightly different takes on how to view a moment you’re afraid is full of importance.

Track: “Daniel 12:8 (third)”
Album: The Life of the World in Flux (2009)

The Book of Daniel is all about what might happen. Daniel interprets God’s messages and hears from angels. He performs superhuman feats to prove his divine access and lays down with lions and survives flames sent to destroy him. It’s really easy to understand, as stories like these go, and it’s hard to argue with the idea that he knows what he needs to know. The kings of his day come to be impressed and come to listen to him, but only after he can prove it.

There are many ways to take these lessons and there’s an argument about faith that comes from Daniel’s doubters only believing him after seeing irrefutable proof. Daniel 12:8, the verse “Daniel 12:8 (third)” takes a title from, finds Daniel questioning an angel. Even after interpreting dreams for kings and hearing other divine messages, Daniel is only human and needs help understanding the angelic message. He asks “what will the outcome of all this be?”

This song didn’t make it to The Life of the World to Come. It’s only on the demo album The Life of the World in Flux. Further complicating this, we have the “third” version on the demo and the “first” version John Darnielle released separately. The versions differ only in their ending, with the first version offering a hopeful ending and the third version decidedly less so. There are multiple interpretations you can draw from each version, but this song stems from a time when John Darnielle was thinking about his health and about his life to that point. Through that lens, Daniel’s confusion and fear may be about a turning point where things will either get better or they won’t.

334. Game Shows Touch Our Lives

Alex Russell Tallahassee , , , , , , , ,

In one of the best Alpha Couple songs, John Darnielle asks us to consider a difficult evening in “Game Shows Touch Our Lives.”

Track: “Game Shows Touch Our Lives”
Album: Tallahassee (2002)

People will talk about “No Children” forever because the chorus is undeniable, but the Alpha Couple has so many memorable moments across Tallahassee. John Darnielle tells the tale of this couple and how they fall into darkness so completely that people often think it’s some form of autobiography. Many of the great albums from this period of the Mountain Goats are, but this is a story that only borrows from real stories. It is real to remember a moment with cheap gin and sad evenings, but it wasn’t John Darnielle’s life at the time. This is the man who wrote “There Will Be No Divorce,” but he didn’t write it about these characters.

“Everything’s gonna be okay soon // maybe tomorrow // maybe the next day,” is one of those sets of lines that could feel underwritten. Most of this one isn’t necessarily that complicated, but it really solidly nails the emotions of a dark, stale room where there’s a very real fear that the morning won’t be any better. “I’m in the mood // the mood for you,” is one of the last moments of love this couple shares, and even that is a slight one. We’re only on track four of the album and already our couple needs gin to make it to the morning.

There were two “hidden” videos released on the website for Tallahassee and this one clearly goes with this song. That video could be funny in the right light, but I suspect if you identify with this song it will hit you the way it’s intended.

333. You or Your Memory

Alex Russell The Sunset Tree , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle finds himself with dark thoughts in a motel in “You or Your Memory.”

Track: “You or Your Memory”
Album: The Sunset Tree (2005)

You can look up the motel that’s described in “You or Your Memory.” You can piece it together from live shows and figure out where this real place is and go see it. I normally would defend you doing so as a part of connecting with any Mountain Goats song. This is the only case where I would say you don’t need to do it. I think you can picture it when you hear it and if you go seek to verify if you were right or not, you will only be disappointed. Trust me when I say that you’re right, you don’t need to go see.

“You or Your Memory” is a song that challenges you to discuss it because it is so self-evident. It’s a song about what it is. Someone comes home to a motel and lays everything out and has to make a choice. John Darnielle has said it’s a Hobson’s choice, a term for a situation where someone can either take what is available or choose to take nothing. It’s all a way of talking around the situation, in that the narrator is dealing with loss and isn’t sure how to approach the next day.

The Sunset Tree is about loss. It’s a complicated loss, a death where in “Pale Green Things” the narrator, John, even says “they told me how you died ‘at last’ // ‘at last?'” Loss is never easy, by sheer nature, but it is harder with other things layered on top. “You or Your Memory” is a song about the layers in yourself that you bring to how you process loss.

332. Going to Port Washington

Alex Russell Ghana , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle and Rachel Ware harmonize and tell a sweet story well worth hearing in “Going to Port Washington.”

Track: “Going to Port Washington”
Album: Ghana (1999)

Any time you speak in absolutes you end up being wrong, but I think “Going to Port Washington” is the best song from the John Darnielle and Rachel Ware era. There’s kinda nothing to it, but that’s kinda the point. It’s just the story of one person seeing another person and being really, really, really in love. There aren’t as many of those as there are songs about the opposite experience that comes later after some bad times, but even among the happier songs this stands out.

It was originally on The Wedding Record, which was released to announce a wedding. John Darnielle once mentioned that the couple from that wedding is now divorced. You can also piece together the geography from those stories and figure out this is Port Washington, New York, and the Throgs Neck Bridge extends over the East River. Interestingly, it extends to Throggs Neck, with an extra g, but the person who named the bridge spelled it with one g, thus the bridge is forever spelled wrong.

When I think about love songs, I don’t think about “Going to Port Washington.” It is a love song, for sure, but the polish of the thing is what comes to mind when revisiting it. It’s so crisply recorded and the harmony is so perfect. John Darnielle called it the best recording they ever made together and it’s tough to argue with that. The band has evolved and made much more complicated and ambitious things than this, but considered among other output of the style at the time this is the apex. It’ll always be what I think of as “the old stuff.”

331. Creature Song

Alex Russell Ghana , , , , , , ,

“Creature Song” relies on a classic for the chorus but a John Darnielle original for the memorable verses.

Track: “Creature Song”
Album: Ghana (1999)

Like “Pure Sound,” “Creature Song” was released both on Goar Magazine #11 in 1995 and on the compilation Ghana in 1999. Goar was a music magazine in Germany in the 1990s and it is difficult to track down much beyond that. People have sold a few of this release in the last few years, so it is not unreasonable to think you could get one. I’ve never been that kind of collector, but I can understand the appeal of wanting to hold in your hand the release from 1995 that brought some small corner of the world two more Mountain Goats songs.

The chorus of “Creature Song” comes from The Tempest: “oh, brave new world // that has such people in it.” This happens in the older songs, though the references are usually a little harder to spot than this. The chorus stiches two verses together and the song is very short, even for an early Mountain Goats song. The first chorus is the sweet spot, I think, with a relatable opener in “I remember the sound of your voice // but none of what you said.” There are dozens of Mountain Goats songs from this era from the perspective of a narrator that can’t really understand another person but really wants to do so, and “Creature Song” could simply be another one. The nearly whispered delivery sets it apart, though, and it sticks with you to wonder what “no harm intended, no harm” means and what the “only choice” the narrator feels they have just might be exactly.

330. Flight 717: Going to Denmark

Alex Russell Ghana , , , , , , ,

Two characters imagine a life in another country and what the feeling of that imagining does to them in “Flight 717: Going to Denmark.”

Track: “Flight 717: Going to Denmark”
Album: Ghana (1999)

When I was in graduate school, one of my assignments was to go through one hundred years of yearbooks to piece together a narrative of the athletics department for a larger history. Ultimately the things people care about are things they already know, so it’s not likely I was going to find anything that people found all that interesting. The search, still, was worth doing. There is something to be said for the hunt.

I feel similarly about this story. Theme Park Records released one 7-inch for the Mountain Goats and two compilations with Mountain Goats songs on them. In 1995, they released Corkscrewed, which includes both “The Admonishing Song” and “Flight 717: Going to Denmark.” It is difficult to find information beyond this because “Theme Park Records” generally shows up records of things happening at theme parks, but label owner Russell Hill confirmed the details about why this exists at all in this funny thread.

It is interesting that you can find this stuff today. This is a great song, but it’s also just one of those songs from the early days. Twenty years ago this kind of information would be unthinkable, and even if you heard from a guy that it was true you might not believe it. In this modern era, John Darnielle follows this account, replied to the Tweet, and thanked someone named “Russell Hill” on the 7-inch they released. There are still mysteries in this world, but I pick this song to demonstrate how complete a picture it’s possible to create, even if that won’t tell you everything.

329. Going to Maine

Alex Russell Ghana , , , , , , ,

The bouncy, fun song about failing marriage that is “Going to Maine” could only be written by John Darnielle.

Track: “Going to Maine”
Album: Ghana (1999)

“Going to Maine” was recorded live and released on Hardcore Acoustic, a tape put out by Shrimper Records in 1993. You can buy a copy for about $30 if you can find someone to sell you one. It has a few other songs, including a Franklin Bruno song and a song from Peter Hughes’ solo project.

This is a “funny” song, but that may be oversimplifying it. John Darnielle said it was “one of those songs that you think is funny, and people who like Mountain Goats songs think is funny, but everybody else wonders what on Earth you’re talking about.” This is as good a summation as any.

You can picture a time when this would have been a “hit.” That term doesn’t really work for the kind of music the Mountain Goats make, but there are a lot of songs from just a few years later that were big among “college rock” fans that sound a lot like this. It’s catchy, you pick it up quickly, and it’s funny, even if it’s about a divorce. The subject matter is probably too weird for some, but “your husband // my wife // my marriage // your life” as a four-line verse-ender is about as clear as you can get.

John Darnielle says he wrote “Going to Maine” with an image of Maine as a magical, distant place. A lot of the “Going to…” songs have this vibe to them, where the location doesn’t matter except that it’s far away. Don’t look for the significance of Maine in this one, it’s just about getting far, far away from California and, in this case, far away from a love that’s over without being done.

328. The Anglo-Saxons

Alex Russell Ghana , , , , , , ,

“The Anglo-Saxons” may be one of the “funny” ones, but it’s gained a lot of character even beyond that.

Track: “The Anglo-Saxons”
Album: Ghana (1999)

In the past 25 years or so, John Darnielle has played “The Anglo-Saxons” just a few times. I’m fascinated by songs like this, not just in their rarity, but in the fact that they exist at all. In Portland in 2017 he played it and commented on the fact that it’s largely inaccurate as a history and ends with a big explosion the way all old Mountain Goats songs end. This is just one of those songs from some of those days and that may or may not be all you need to know.

It was originally released as part of a compilation called Basement Tapes, a set of live recordings that the radio station KSPC put out in 1995. You can buy one used for about twenty-five bucks. Mountain Goats fans will know it from Ghana a few years later and will appreciate the young John Darnielle vocals and the high pitch. It’s one of the “funny” ones like “Going to Maine” or “The Monkey Song” but it’s also a history, like “Song for Cleomenes.”

The rhymes are tight and the delivery suggests a sort of morning cartoon about this ancient group of people. You can imagine this coming on after The Flintstones. John Darnielle contains multitudes, and it’s great that the same guy who ended an album with “In Corolla” once wrote a funny story about some facts about the people who lived in England before the English did.

327. California Song

Alex Russell Sweden , , , , , , ,

As good as anthem as any Mountain Goats song, “California Song” shows us a frozen moment in time.

Track: “California Song”
Album: Sweden (1995)

The version of “California Song” on Sweden is pretty, but it requires you to look past the era-appropriate digital preset background. Maybe that part is charming to you the way it is on excellent preset songs like “Going to Malibu.” It’s a nice beat behind a sweet song and that is good enough. It should be good enough, at least, but that’s if you haven’t heard it any other way.

For a time, “California Song” was a closer. You can see the best version of that at this show in California in 2008. Peter Hughes plays the bassline and John Darnielle whispers the first verse before eschewing the mic and singing the rest into the crowd as they softly sing it back to him. The entire room knows this song, as he predicts by telling them they all know it. Some of that’s the location and some of that’s the venue and some of that’s the song, but all of it is the recognition that the room is going to know a song that’s this central to the experience.

I don’t think this one “unlocked” for me until I saw that performance. The original is truly beautiful, but there’s something about the passion from the show that brings a line like “as white as household bleach” to life. It all ends up with a reference to another song, which wasn’t uncommon at the time for John Darnielle, but the overall feeling being conveyed is 100% Mountain Goats.

326. Emerging

Alex Russell Moon Colony Bloodbath , , , , , , ,

Moon Colony Bloodbath ends with the haunting “Emerging,” which tells us directly what we’ve been half-told for the whole album.

Track: “Emerging”
Album: Moon Colony Bloodbath (2009)

All of Moon Colony Bloodbath is about building to the revelation in “Emerging.” The album is cryptic but suggests a dark turn and then pays it off shockingly with an extremely clear, extremely direct description of a person eating bodies. This person is in charge of harvesting bodies on the Moon. They harvest them as they’re supposed to, but then they eat some of them. They’ve lost their mind and their humanity and now it’s all about the “sweet things inside.”

John Darnielle has called it a “love song” from the narrator to the bodies and that comes through. This person knows this is “dreadful,” but they also know they’re going to do this thing. There are a few Mountain Goats songs that explore this space of compulsion and how even the worst actions can be done in a loving way. It’s an extreme degree of difficulty to apply this to cannibalism, but a story about bodies in a lunar colony gives you some space to explore.

What’s especially haunting is that the cannibalism reveal should be the end of it, but it isn’t. After we find out this person is eating people, we find out they’re going to get away with it. “I will sail home again // concealed among the upright walking men,” they tell us, which leaves us with the idea that in this world, everyone you see on the street might be a secret cannibal. There’s a clear metaphor there but there’s also the literal piece, which is the perfect final note for Moon Colony Bloodbath to end on.