Author: Alex Russell

315. From TG&Y

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle tells a version of his own story to help you with yours in “From TG&Y.”

Track: “From TG&Y”
Album: Unreleased (released by John Darnielle on the forums in 2007)

When John Darnielle released a version of “From TG&Y” on his band’s forums, he asked everyone to sign a pledge. If they listened to it, he said, they had to agree to not demand it is better than songs on The Sunset Tree and to, essentially, let it be what it is. It’s been played live a lot, especially for an unreleased song, and it’s a fan favorite. I will abide by the rules and say simply that I agree that it belongs “with” the songs from The Sunset Tree.

John Darnielle has said in tons of interviews that his earlier narrators are not him. They aren’t even necessarily like him, even in basic details like pronouns. It never occurred to me until I started writing this, but with very rare exceptions, you never find out the gender of a speaker or recipient of most songs. This falls away when the narrator is John Darnielle or when the story is specific, and the narrator in “From TG&Y” is John Darnielle. He has said this is “more or less a true story.”

I pair it with “You’re in Maya” in my mind. Both songs describe a young, troubled John Darnielle and both find him struggling to deal with the world around him. “One more night in this town // is gonna break me, I just know,” he says here, which pairs with “there was nowhere I needed to go // and nowhere I wanted to be.” They’re both songs that won’t be released because they’re special and they both mean a lot to people who are currently going through whatever they’re going through.

314. The Cow Song

Alex Russell The Hound Chronicles , , , , , , ,

The only readily available live performance of “The Cow Song” finds two people really, really enjoying it.

Track: “The Cow Song”
Album: The Hound Chronicles (1992)

“The Cow Song” opens with the lines “Bang pow, look at me now // don’t let the cows stray off too far.” It’s a very silly song, as was not totally uncommon in the early 90s for John Darnielle. The chorus is a repetition of “I love the cows.” I don’t have a lot to say, here.

Or I wouldn’t, without this tremendous piece of video history. The video starts as the song starts, but from context we can tell that two guys requested “The Cow Song” at The Union in Athens, Ohio on a September night in 2006. On most of this tour, the band played a lot of songs from Get Lonely, unsurprisingly, and there are not many deep cuts on any of the shows that have set lists. One would wonder, then, why this show has the only live performance it’s easy to find of a weird, early joke song about cows. The video answers the question. These guys asked for “The Cow Song” and John Darnielle indulged them. One wonders what we’re missing here and if it might explain why this song, of all possible songs. It’s okay to have some mystery and not know.

The venue seems like the right one to do this in, if you’re going to do this. I’m of a few minds about this. The guy who uploaded the video even describes himself as “heckling” in the description, but he’s clearly a huge fan and, for whatever reason, wants to hear this song. He asks for “The Doll Song” after it ends and John Darnielle says he’s scowling at him. Apparently actually unreleased obscurities are a bridge too far.

313. “Bluejays and Cardinals”

Alex Russell The Coroner's Gambit , , , , , , ,

“”Bluejays and Cardinals”” offers a vision of someone gone too soon that was really extraordinary when they were here.

Track: “”Bluejays and Cardinals””
Album: The Coroner’s Gambit (2000)

I’ve linked this before, but I need to call your attention to this interview John Darnielle did in 2004. The interview has 28 footnotes, including one explaining who Andrei Tarkovsky is. You never really know what you’re going to get from an interview with John Darnielle. He’s a really interesting guy, obviously, but he’s also just as likely to answer the question as he is to tell you a story about an obscure Roman general. This is not a complaint, but it’s a testament to how incredible this interview is that the interviewer recognized the challenge and rose to the task.

This interview explains the odd formatting for “”Bluejays and Cardinals,”” which officially has quotation marks in the song title, thus necessitating double quotation marks. The song, and several other direct songs about death on The Coroner’s Gambit, are about a friend of John Darnielle’s who passed away. The quotation marks reference an album that was in quotation marks called “Ashes” that supposedly had a not very satisfying reason for the marks. John Darnielle deliberately didn’t elaborate so I haven’t tried to crack that answer further.

“Shadow Song” is the sister song and it’s even more direct, but “this world couldn’t hold you // you slipped free” tells you what you need to know. It’s a song about death without being necessarily sad, though even that is not exactly accurate. The Coroner’s Gambit is a fairly brutal album and John Darnielle asks you to look directly at the subject matter a lot of the time, but the high moments of “”Bluejays and Cardinals”” are really something. It’s nice to think of someone who makes baseballs go further just because they rule.

312. Columns Pillars Steps

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

John Vanderslice takes perspective in “Columns Pillars Steps” and shows us what happens right before an unthinkable choice.

Track: “Columns Pillars Steps”
Album: Moon Colony Bloodbath (2009)

“Columns Pillars Steps” has the difficult job of bridging two very different songs. Moon Colony Bloodbath is the story of people who have some sinister tasks to get done and how they live with themselves after the tasks are finished. “Sudden Oak Death” comes before it, which John Darnielle has said doesn’t really fit the album but sets up the mood of despair. “Emerging” follows it and speaks for itself as a conclusion to the story. How do you get from despair to acceptance and almost proud cannibalism?

John Vanderslice has the lead vocals on the album version, but most live versions switch between John Darnielle and Vanderslice. Both versions work, but Vanderslice’s trademark wavering pattern adds to the flowing sensation. This is someone at the end of their rope that says they are “inconsolable, still.” We don’t really get much more than that. The chorus finds them “cruising all night” in a light tone on the album and a more severe harmony on every live version, but where are they going?

I love Moon Colony Bloodbath because it tells you enough to follow the story but not enough to follow every scene. What is “DCU,” for example? Every place online that people try to figure out Mountain Goats songs seems to agree this is “Desert Camouflage Uniform,” but why would that be it? I love that you don’t know, and given that it’s Vanderslice, it’s possible you’re not supposed to know. One of my favorite Vanderslice songs is “D.I.A.L.O.,” which he’s said does not stand for anything. I say DCU isn’t anything, but it also doesn’t need to be anything.

311. Dinu Lipatti’s Bones

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

By referencing a pianist who died young, “Dinu Lipatti’s Bones” shows us the difficult hopelessness of young love in turbulent situations.

Track: “Dinu Lipatti’s Bones”
Album: The Sunset Tree (2005)

I don’t believe anyone could come to the Mountain Goats and “get” everything right away. You’d need to be John Darnielle himself or someone so similar as to be unimaginable. You need to be a scholar of multiple religions, an expert on metal and similar genres of music, a professional wrestling fan of multiple eras, and a half-dozen other specific things. You need to have seen about 30 movies that have no connection at all. You need to have read deeply within completely disconnected types of literature and storytelling myth.

There is less of this required for The Sunset Tree. I don’t know how many times I heard “Dinu Lipatti’s Bones” before it occurred to me that Dinu Lipatti must be a real person. He was a Romanian pianist who died of cancer in his early 30s, but was apparently exceptional, especially known for the “purity of his interpretations.” Why John Darnielle chose him for this song is unclear, but I think the tragically young death is relevant for an album about youth. The Sunset Tree both looks at what actually happened and imagines what could have, which is the same headspace you find yourself in when you consider a too-young death of a genius of their field.

It’s also about how you force yourself to one pursuit. Dinu Lipatti lived a short life dominated by pursuit of perfection at his craft, John Darnielle’s narrator is in love and cannot make it work. Maybe it works for now, but the “dark dreams” in the song tell us it won’t work in the end.

310. Luna

Alex Russell Beat the Champ , , , , , , , , , ,

From the opening line, “Luna” tells us that Luna Vachon’s story will not be an easy one to hear.

Track: “Luna”
Album: Beat the Champ (2015)

If you’re of a certain age and if you watched wrestling at a certain other age, you might remember Luna Vachon. She was a wrestler, which may not be shocking for Beat the Champ, but she was especially memorable for her persona and her look. She exists for me in a space most wrestlers of the early 90s exist, which I can almost place these memories but not quite. I must have seen her dozens of times or more, but all of it is just outside where I can access.

Luna Vachon is the Luna in “Luna,” which details her life, or at least one part of it. She saw a lot of success, comparatively speaking, but her story ends with a housefire that destroyed much of her memorabilia and then a tragic overdose. “Luna” follows the wrestler tracing “big names” in ash as the fire dies down. The song stops short of what comes after and suggests an eternal next step with the repetition of “and ride // and ride // and ride // and ride.”

John Darnielle says Beat the Champ is about what happens to people who wrestle more than it is about wrestling, and in “Luna” he finds a way to talk about both. We see only a moment or two of Luna Vachon’s life and we only know it’s her from the title, but once the connection is made the song is something completely different. The experience is specific, but the feeling it creates is general. This is one of the last moments, but it’s only that in retrospect. In the moment, maybe this is the start of everything turning around, but as you might know, sometimes, it’s not.

309. Baltimore

Alex Russell Martial Arts Weekend , , , , , , ,

With a catchy hook and a full sound, “Baltimore” shows you what you can expect from John Darnielle’s side project.

Track: “Baltimore”
Album: Martial Arts Weekend (2002)

For my money, “Baltimore” is the best song on Martial Arts Weekend. I tend to listen to the second Extra Glenns/Lens album more than the first, but when I go back to the first I’m always enchanted with how it starts. Pitchfork called “Baltimore” a “back catalog echo song,” but did so in a review that says both that more electric guitar would be interesting and that all John Darnielle songs should be lo-fi, so make of that what you will.

The performance is what does it for me. It’s not all that interesting a song, lyrically, which is a shocking statement for a John Darnielle song, but also only true in comparison. It’s only a slight because of what else there is. What elevates “Baltimore” is exactly what Pitchfork seemed to find uninteresting. The composition stays beautiful, resisting the urge on a lot of early electric John Darnielle to fuzz out into panic or to shock with speed and rage. This is as pretty as John Darnielle is willing to get on a song with more than just quiet guitar.

It’s additionally remarkable that this came out in 2002, the same year as All Hail West Texas and Tallahassee. Neither of those albums sounds like this one, but you can imagine the people behind all of them being similar. “Baltimore” is a fitting start to an interesting diversion in the band’s work and it’s probably the most complete song from that album, though definitely not from those days.

308. Maybe Sprout Wings

Alex Russell Get Lonely , , , , , , ,

Few Mountain Goats characters let themselves soak in the darkness as much as the narrator in “Maybe Sprout Wings.”

Track: “Maybe Sprout Wings”
Album: Get Lonely (2006)

Get Lonely is undeniably a “breakup record,” but that tends to diminish the fullness of what it also is. Just as “Wild Sage” isn’t necessarily about someone who is just out of a relationship, “Maybe Sprout Wings” is about a larger loneliness than just losing a loved one in some way. This is about a more cosmic sense of being alone, removed from humanity rather than just one particular human. There are dozens of songs about quiet loneliness, but few dare to tread the space of “Maybe Sprout Wings.” The lines “I thought of old friends // the ones who’d gone missing” stare directly at the abyss with no metaphor to cloak them. This is about the tough times and how they never end, once they happen. If it was bad, it will always be bad in the past, with ghosts and clouds and “nameless things” to haunt you when you go back to those moments.

I don’t know if all of Get Lonely has the same narrator or not. John Darnielle has both emphatically said that it is and isn’t a “breakup record,” but he’s also said that interpretations of his music are open-ended. Other than the obvious The Sunset Tree where the narrator is usually John Darnielle himself, I think this is the album most likely to all come from the same perspective. If we assume that, we’re at the lowest point of the journey during “Maybe Sprout Wings.” It starts with introspection in “Wild Sage” and ends with an emphatic rejection of hope in “In Corolla,” but this is the moment that foretells that ending. It is the right song for some moments, but may your life have few of them.

307. Letter from Belgium

Alex Russell Palmcorder Yajna, We Shall All Be Healed , , , , , , ,

“Letter from Belgium” is a song for lockdown that wasn’t intended to be that originally, but now can be your COVID-19 jam.

Track: “Letter from Belgium”
Album: We Shall All Be Healed (2004) and Letter from Belgium (2004)

At the start of quarantine in 2020, John Darnielle tweeted that “Letter from Belgium” is the “quarantine deep cut” among Mountain Goats songs. I’d heard the song hundreds of times before that moment and never connected it to the experience of the moment. It’s impossible not to hear it, though, when you’re listening for it: “We’ve been past the point of help since early April.” Depending on where you live, COVID-19 became a reality in your world around then. A weird line, especially in a song about “waiting for the fever to break.”

“Letter from Belgium” is about a different cause for alarm, but the panic is similar. These characters are locked in rooms with other substances they need, to the point where they reject the world. They obsess over stage makeup and odd, disconnected artwork. They express fear of neighbors and outsiders. It’s very much in line with the We Shall All Be Healed character study.

It doesn’t matter if you read it through a modern lens or through the album’s. This is a song for when you can’t go outside, whether there’s an external reason for that or not. Sometimes you’re just in there because you have to be in there, John Darnielle tells us, and you’ll make do with what you have. The items are only connected if you get in the right headspace, which is hopefully not a place you find yourself for an extended period of time.

306. San Bernardino

Alex Russell Heretic Pride , , , ,

“San Bernardino” feels very personal, but one excellent performance shows how even the personal can be shared.

Track: “San Bernardino”
Album: Heretic Pride (2008)

We could talk about how John Darnielle once said the characters in “San Bernardino” were some of his favorite characters. We could talk about the track placement, between two fairly explosive songs on Heretic Pride that feel much more connected, somehow, and what it means for this to be between them. We could talk about how this happens in an actual, real place, in a way that even the most specific Mountain Goats songs don’t usually happen in a real place.

That stuff is cool, but I want to talk about this specific performance of “San Bernardino” in May of 2011. I think it’s tough to adhere to John Darnielle’s sometimes-stated-sometimes-not desire that live shows are live shows and if you aren’t there, that specific one wasn’t for you. I doubt he’d feel that way about this one, but whatever the case you really owe it to yourself to see it. John Darnielle gets a few moments in and realizes the crowd is overwhelming. This happens, but the venue and the song mix perfectly here and the crowd reflects back at him so loud that he abandons the mic. He lets the song be the moment they’re all having and says, simply, “awesome.”

I write this in a time when no one has seen the Mountain Goats in person for a very long time because no one can see anyone in person right now. When that time ends, let this performance and this song be the strongest advertisement possible to see John Darnielle and company in person. They aren’t all like this, but when they are and you’re there with other people who took their own journey with “San Bernardino,” enough to even surprise the man who wrote it, you want to be in the room.