Bitter Melon Farm

419. Noche del Guajolote

Alex Russell Bitter Melon Farm , , , , , , ,

A one-time experience (that may have happened more than once), “Noche del Guajolote” is, of course, about a turkey.

Track: “Noche del Guajolote”
Album: Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

John Darnielle once told a crowd that he would rather not try to play “Noche del Guajolote” without the Bright Mountain Choir, the women who performed in various configurations on Mountain Goats songs in the 90s. They added the bird sounds and backing vocals that accompany the version on Bitter Melon Farm, which can also be assumed to be the only one there is. It also came out on a compilation called I Like Walt! in celebration of Walt Records, which seems to no longer exist.

The Mountain Goats Wiki posits that it was played in 2015 in Philadelphia and maybe it was. No recording of that exists, at least not one you can easily find, and I sorta like it better that way. There is a push/pull element to the desire to both want to hear everything but also leave something a mystery. John Darnielle is right, it really needs the Choir or it’s a little small as an experience. The thing is, with it, it’s something special.

There are a handful of these and you have to assume the experience of their creation was all fairly similar. This one specifically, which translates to “turkey of the night,” was supposedly created the morning it was played and does feel that way. Curiously, the aforementioned Wiki includes a note that the timeline here has inconsistencies. It’s up to you if that matters to you or not. I’ve always liked how this one ends, and I don’t need the exact history for this one for that to feel special.

416. Song for an Old Friend

Alex Russell Bitter Melon Farm , , , , , , ,

In what was supposed to be the start of something new, “Song for an Old Friend” is all strong visuals and one emotion.

Track: “Song for an Old Friend”
Album: Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

The story goes that John Darnielle wrote “Song for an Old Friend” believing it would launch a new band. They were to be The Orange Trees and they would write more accessible pop music. They played one show in Evanston, Illinois, to five people and then died that night as John Darnielle realized he was, for better or worse, the Mountain Goats.

It appeared on a compilation called The Wheel Method which apparently had individually different covers for each copy. You can buy some of them online for $12 now. The song made it to Bitter Melon Farm four years later and some time after that John Darnielle played it solo in 2006 as part of some sort of online concert for AOL. That version is really worth watching. It’s not fundamentally different from the studio version, but it’s just so passionate.

John Darnielle wrote this song right after Rachel Ware left the Mountain Goats, so people hypothesize that it’s about her. I don’t really know if that’s true and it doesn’t make much sense to me given the romantic overtones, but that depends on what kind of love you think the song is talking about. It’s funny to imagine this as a song for a more accessible band given the violence of “the day your love came screaming through me.” That line is pure Mountain Goats and I think we all owe something to the people of Evanston who didn’t go out to that Orange Trees show. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered, but just for that one night, the universe told John Darnielle that he had something, it just was what he was already doing.

412. Going to Santiago

Alex Russell Bitter Melon Farm, Transmissions to Horace , , , , , , , ,

Haunting clues are all we get in the troubling “Going to Santiago.”

Track: “Going to Santiago”
Album: Transmissions to Horace (1993) and Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

In 2014, at Bottom of the Hill, the Mountain Goats played all of Transmissions to Horace, in a row. It’s worth listening to all of it, as it is every time he’s done that with one of the early tapes. Just before “Going to Santiago” John Darnielle says he needs a cheat sheet for it. After he plays it, he jokes that the crowd was probably excited when they first figured out what was happening but surely is sick of it by now. Given the audience, this is safely a joke.

The chorus is entirely “la la la” repeated over and over. “Alpha Desperation March” devolves into sick laughter to show the narrator’s mental state, and this is likely a similar situation though not really as effective. It’s an early song, but the verses are really something. The narrator tells us they have “a pocketful of medicine to abuse myself with” and I feel like that’s just a great line. There are little pieces of the early work here, with the character telling us they’re a specific distance away from California. We could assume that from the title, but the Santiago in “Going to Santiago” is a state of mind, not a place. These songs are often about what kind of person you could be if you could get out of your current situation. The truth, of course, is you’d still be the same person.

410. No, I Can’t

Alex Russell Bitter Melon Farm, Transmissions to Horace , , , , , , , ,

The Mountain Goats list a series of things you might need in “No, I Can’t.”

Track: “No, I Can’t”
Album: Transmissions to Horace (1993) and Songs for Peter Hughes (1995) and Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

There are different versions of “No, I Can’t.” The original from Transmissions to Horace is a little slower and a little sadder. The version from Songs for Peter Hughes is fully danceable and has some beautiful backing vocals from Rachel Ware. Neither is better than the other, though I’ve come to love the faster one and it’s the one I think of when I think of “No, I Can’t.” The bass is nice and there’s a scream in there that’s worth hearing and the “I don’t know what I, I don’t know what I, I don’t know what I ever did without it” that leads into the final verse is just something else.

Kyle Barbour, whose excellent Annotated Mountain Goats page is currently down but will hopefully be back eventually, listed 43 specific things John Darnielle has inserted into this song live. The song is essentially a list of things one person brings another person, which lends itself to edits. I encourage you to seek out live versions to hear examples, but I have to call out Barbour’s diligence here. Is it significant that one of the items is a similar Panasonic to what John Darnielle would have been using to record his early work? Do you need it to be significant? Sometimes you just need someone to bring you exactly the right thing and you don’t even know until they do. You can feel the passion here and you know Darnielle means it when he says “I don’t know what I ever did without it.”

409. Going to Cleveland

Alex Russell Bitter Melon Farm, Transmissions to Horace , , , , , , , ,

After a hiss and a screech, two people fight about not fighting in “Going to Cleveland.”

Track: “Going to Cleveland”
Album: Transmissions to Horace (1993) and Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

“Going to Cleveland” opens with a screeching sound for 25 seconds. It’s always reminded me of “Going to Kansas” in that way, though the explosion that opens “Going to Kansas” is more reflective of what follows. For “Going to Cleveland” this feels more like a punishment. You could analyze this and picture it as the sound of a hangover or a furious rage just before an argument, but I think it’s more likely it was an accident that John Darnielle fell in love with during production. The end result isn’t necessarily distracting if you listen to the album, but it really stands out on a solo listen. The song itself is great, especially the vocals. You’ve just gotta pay for that with some dissonance.

The song is notable as the first ever to include “John” as the narrator’s name, which John Darnielle has said he did specifically for the audience reaction. He also said in the liner notes of Bitter Melon Farm that the song “has attracted a small group of listeners who adhere to the very hard line that it’s the absolute high water mark of the Mountain Goats.” It is certainly indicative of the early style and it’s one of the absolute best early ones, but the mid-90s was such a rich period for the Mountain Goats, so I wouldn’t have been in that camp in 1999. It’s funny to imagine that two decades ago people were already longing for the “old days.” Those people had no idea what was to come.

365. The Bad Doctor

Alex Russell Bitter Melon Farm, Songs for Petronius , , , , , , , ,

“The Bad Doctor” is not about that doctor, but it’s about a doctor, and it’ll force you to sit up and take notice.

Track: “The Bad Doctor”
Album: Songs for Petronius (1992) and Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

If you played “The Bad Doctor” for ten random people you would probably have ten confused people, but if you insisted they listen to it a few times and explain what they thought it was about, they would probably say “Jack Kevorkian.” When you say a phrase like “death-dealing physician” you run into a kind of “facial tissues” vs. “Kleenex” problem. There is only one of this thing, so people call it that thing.

John Darnielle has said a few times that it’s not about that, but it reminds me of the discussion about “Down to the Ark” which talks about political posters that are Obama’s colors during the Obama years but is not about Obama. If John Darnielle says you’re wrong you are wrong, but it’s really easy to see how people came to the conclusion they did. He specifically said “The Bad Doctor” is “about a malevolent force that runs around dispensing death in the guise of medicine — actual widespread death, not the merciful death of Jack Kevorkian.” That’s more than you’ll usually get, which he seems to have only said because he had to be insistent that it is not about what you think.

It’s a very long song, for the time, and it’s a pretty vivid story. The chorus of increasingly insistent “oh yeah” repetition further makes this a strange one, though I always remember how an old friend of mine really, really loved this one. It’s these kinds of songs that worm into your brain and why older Mountain Goats songs are so special. It’s about a magic doctor that murders people, but if that’s not enough, it’s catchy, too.

364. Alpha Double Negative: Going to Catalina

Alex Russell Bitter Melon Farm, Nothing for Juice, Songs for Petronius , , , , , , , , , , ,

From the perspective of the woman in the Alpha Couple, we see someone shut down in “Alpha Double Negative: Going to Catalina.”

Track: “Alpha Double Negative: Going to Catalina”
Album: Songs for Petronius (1992) and Nothing for Juice (1996) and Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

“No, I Can’t” is on three albums. Since it’s on one album with an alternate version as well as the original, it is, I believe, the “most” released Mountain Goats song. Second place goes to one of two songs that are going “Going to” somewhere and in the Alpha series, “Alpha Double Negative: Going to Catalina.” I’m sure all of that math is wrong, but what fun, huh?

There are two standard versions. The original is on Songs for Petronius and the re-release with Bitter Melon Farm seven years later. It’s a little slower and much more deliberate than the version on Nothing for Juice, and I think it’s not quite as good. The Nothing for Juice version has backing vocals and the character sounds less unsure. By the rising “and I see a stranger in your eyes” there’s a mix of fear and fury that really sets this version apart. The guitar, and, obviously, bass, are more in the style of the time, but I think even without those differences it’s just the better take.

In 1998, John Darnielle told a crowd in Tallahassee, years before the album named for the city, that it is unique because it is from the position of the woman in the Alpha Couple. Most of the time we don’t know, and you are reminded as always to not take one comment at one concert as gospel, even coming from John Darnielle himself. I’m most interested in the way he chose to say it, asking the crowd if they spotted it during the performance. I like imagining this as a mystery that he hoped you were able to solve.

294. Against Agamemnon

Alex Russell Bitter Melon Farm , , , , , , ,

You need to know some history to get it, but there’s a pretty weird joke in “Against Agamemnon.”

Track: “Against Agamemnon”
Album: Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

During the only live performance of “Against Agamemnon” that has an easily accessible recording, John Darnielle recounted the story of Ajax and Agamemnon. Ajax was a warrior who wanted to torture Agamemnon but went mad and tortured a sheep instead. In his shame upon realizing his mistake, he commits suicide. It’s weird, even among similar Greek myths. John Darnielle goes into great detail and it’s worth hearing his explanation. The end is interrupted by a woman in the crowd singing one line from “I Will Grab You by the Ears,” which John Darnielle is confused by. Spare a passing moment to wonder why this person’s response to a story about “Against Agamemnon” was to reference a similarly old and obscure song, but know that it is lost to time.

Ajax is the narrator and he resents the sky for reflecting his madness. He says he’s going for a walk and he’ll be right back. He won’t be right back, we know, and this dramatic irony makes it an interesting place to leave the story. John Darnielle says in the liner notes to Bitter Melon Farm that “Against Agamemnon” was one of his favorite songs at the time, but other than that show in 2008 I can’t find any record of him playing it live. That doesn’t mean anything, necessarily, but it’s interesting.

The performance is a good one, but the live version sounds just like the studio track. It was originally released on a compilation in 1994 called Howl… A Farewell Compilation Of Unreleased Songs that you can buy used for $3.01. The ending is great if you know what you’re hearing, but you do need to know the reference to understand that there’s more going on than Ajax tells you.

246. Song for Dana Plato

Alex Russell Bitter Melon Farm, Songs for Peter Hughes , , , , , , , ,

“Song for Dana Plato” leaves us with a feeling rather than telling the story of the woman herself.

Track: “Song for Dana Plato”
Album: Songs for Peter Hughes (1995) and Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

John Darnielle likely wrote “Song for Dana Plato” in 1994 or 1995, based on the release date of Songs for Peter Hughes. Dana Plato was making the final movies of her life in those years, long after her time on Diff’rent Strokes. Her personal life was difficult and she’d been recently arrested several times for robbery and forging a prescription for painkillers.

John Darnielle is fascinated by tragic figures, and more specifically what leads to these peopling becoming tragic figures. Dana Plato once said that her mother “made her normal” but did not prepare her for real life, which made her a great child star but led to a difficulty in adjusting to the world as her role in it changed. There’s obviously a lot that’s possible to unpack there, but it establishes her a prime subject for a Mountain Goats song.

After Dana Plato died, John Darnielle played “Song for Dana Plato” several times on a tour. The tone is interesting to reconcile with the subject matter. Dana Plato’s story is a sad example of what happens when someone attempts to process addiction. John Darnielle doesn’t want to focus on robbing a video store, it’s more important to think about how this person feels and what the experience is like.

“What kind of world is it that comes headlong at you and then swerves at the last possible second,” John Darnielle says, which is as good a description as any of immense fame and then a need to risk it all for $164. “It’s this one,” he says, “it’s this one.”

192. Going to Bangor

Alex Russell Bitter Melon Farm , , , , , , ,

 

Through a striking (but strange) image, we see two people struggling to communicate in “Going to Bangor.”

Track: “Going to Bangor”
Album: Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

In the liner notes for Bitter Melon Farm, John Darnielle talks about the emotion he hoped to stir up after playing “Going to Bangor” in Holland:

“I had envisioned romantic young Dutch men and women taking to the streets, pulling the old men away from their chess games and forming them into minor league baseball clubs with names like the Dordrecht Wild Ferns or the Ooij Interminable Dysfunctional Relationships.”

He makes a joke after that about it not having that impact. In the usual sources, that remains the full commentary on “Going to Bangor” both from fans and from John Darnielle himself. That’s not uncommon with the early songs, but it’s interesting in this case because it can be interpreted as a judgment on elements of the song. Certainly there are better Mountain Goats songs about “interminable dysfunctional relationships,” but “Going to Bangor” is a worthy entry to the catalog. It belongs in a category with so many other songs about shocking, mysterious imagery. The first verse concludes with “all the signs // are easy to read,” but is that true of a line about wild ferns growing?

There’s a lot to potentially unpack in “Going to Bangor,” but it seems likely that it’s not supposed to be figured out. The second verse is dominated by one character approaching the narrator with a mouth full of cranberries. They drip juice out of their mouth and we view this scene through the eyes of the narrator, who tells us they feel lied to and doubt their partner. It’s rarely this weird, but this is emotionally common ground for the Goats. You can certainly picture people forming baseball teams around it now, even if you couldn’t then.