Isopanisad Radio Hour

348. The Last Limit of Bhakti

Alex Russell Isopanisad Radio Hour , , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle offers a hopeful song at the end of an album with “The Last Limit of Bhakti.”

Track: “The Last Limit of Bhakti”
Album: Isopanisad Radio Hour (2000)

The temptation is strong to approach “The Last Limit of Bhakti” like a book report. There are so many references to crack here and so many ways to dig in. Isopanisad Radio Hour as an album title is already something to unpack, borrowing a title from the Hindu religious texts but then opening with “Abide With Me,” a hymn with references to the Book of Luke. The album takes a pivot into more familiar Mountain Goats territory with “Born Ready” and “Cobscook Bay” but then has two songs that have nearly impenetrable meanings to the point that John Darnielle makes jokes about them when he plays them live.

It’s an excellent album, but all of that leads up to “The Last Limit of Bhakti” and one must reckon with how we got there. Not every album has a clear theme, especially the shorter EPs, but there is often a consistent tone. This one ends how it began, with a deeply religious song but even more than that, a song about how to live. Bhakti is a term for religious devotion and “The Last Limit of Bhakti” finds a narrator who is prepared to go all the way. “When the world is giving your secrets all away // let me give you cover,” they say, and we question if we have this level of commitment. It’s a pretty personal message, but it’s one that you find in a handful of other Mountain Goats songs. So many narrators are obsessed with the wrong things, what if you could channel that energy in a positive way? It’s hopeful, in that way, and a nice note to head out on.

245. Dutch Orchestra Blues

Alex Russell Isopanisad Radio Hour , , , , , , ,

“Dutch Orchestra Blues” sees a relationship potentially end but also draws attention away with a trick.

Track: “Dutch Orchestra Blues”
Album: Isopanisad Radio Hour (2000)

There are about a dozen performances of “Dutch Orchestra Blues” across the hundreds of live shows that Mountain Goats fans have taped and uploaded online. In Holland, John Darnielle told the audience that he was picturing a particular street when he wrote the song. In many performances, he joked about it being a “middle period Mountain Goats song” and said it was one of his favorites.

As far as “explanations” go, there’s a conclusive one for this song. At a show in Arizona in 2018, John Darnielle told the audience he thought of “Dutch Orchestra Blues” as a song that builds towards an explanation and doesn’t deliver on it. It’s a joke, in a way, and one that a lot of the best songs of this era execute well. Other songs tell us the Easter Bunny is coming or water is going to destroy all things or wild dogs are coming down from the mountain and we’re left to wonder what that means for us. “Dutch Orchestra Blues” follows a similar trajectory but doesn’t even get to that point. Our narrator even says that they might not walk by and someone else might not even notice.

As far as that concept goes, this may be the best example. Our narrator sets the stakes with “you may love me // or you may not love me at all anymore” but immediately follows that with a description of the titular Dutch orchestra and the sun shining in Holland in the spring. You are certainly welcome to believe it to be something representative, but I think the sudden turn is the point. The possible end of this love is supposed to be so grand a moment, and yet something else veers us away from that and leaves us considering what just happened.

156. Pseudothyrum Song

Alex Russell Isopanisad Radio Hour , , , , , , ,

We only get one side of the story (and not the important side) in the troubling “Pseudothyrum Song.”

Track: “Pseudothyrum Song”
Album: Isopanisad Radio Hour (2000)

Pseudothyrum means “secret door” and is a word you will never hear in any other context for the rest of your life. John Darnielle opened with “Pseudothyrum Song” at a show in 1999. He walked on stage, introduced himself as Rumpelstiltskin, demanded the child that was promised to him, and said that he had no idea why this new song was called “Pseudothyrum Song.” After it ended, he explained that he was actually John, and hello, and then played other songs.

“Pseudothyrum Song” is one that you hope you’ll never identify with in your own life. One character tells another one that they need to get over some emotional baggage so they can move on in their relationship. They may be lovers or friends, but they keep running into problems because of this previous damage. “I think someone was mean to you, for a long, long time,” he says. It’s certainly “he” because this is one of the few songs where a narrator identifies their gender.

Maybe that’s a mistake and maybe it isn’t. John Darnielle says that he deliberately leaves gender ambiguous for his characters so that they can fit the mold you need. In this case, our narrator tells us “I am not that guy” as he describes the supposed aggressor in the other character’s past. We can infer much from this song and it’s up to you how you choose to take it. It’s uncomfortable no matter how you spin it. Sure, this is a different human being than the one that hurt the other character, but the more you listen to it the more you’ll sympathize with the other person.

134. Born Ready

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The curious “Born Ready” describes someone on a mission that is having second thoughts.

Track: “Born Ready”
Album: Isopanisad Radio Hour (2000)

US 101 is a highway in California. It’s a beautiful part of the world and it’s one of the best drives in the country. Apparently northern California prefers to call it “101” and southern California calls it “the 101.” A minor difference, but regionalisms can be everything and it tells us we’re dealing with an outsider on a drive to San Jose.

The charm of “Born Ready” is the contrast. It’s a quiet song that’s beautiful at times with soft drums and almost whispered vocals. Even during the flourish at the end you still might miss what’s happening if you just passively listen to it the first few times. Closer listens reveal the story of someone who has been out east in the snow and now they’re here for a dark purpose.

It may be literal and it may not. It’s not unheard of for Mountain Goats characters to wish evil on each other and mean it emotionally rather than physically, but “I’m going to take you out for good // I’m going to take you down” is rather insistent. The emotional whine in John Darnielle’s voice over the third verse gives us our final clue about this relationship. There’s pain in his voice during “When I think about you, I feel so bad // it’s been a long, long, long, long time.” As so often happens in Mountain Goats songs, there isn’t enough information here for the whole story. All we know is that this person is headed into enemy territory and they feel a great purpose, but maybe they feel something entirely different at the same time. “Born Ready” can serve many moods that way, and that makes it a track worth coming back to again and again.

006. Cobscook Bay

Alex Russell Isopanisad Radio Hour , , , , , , ,

In “Cobscook Bay,” the narrator comes to terms with permanent loss and searches for meaning in the birth of baby cows.

Track: “Cobscook Bay”
Album: Isopanisad Radio Hour (2000)

In “Cobscook Bay” the narrator is in Maine, but their friends are in California. The first verse follows the narrator reflecting over a sunset in Cobscook Bay, a part of Maine mostly known for fishing and shipping. They remember Jill, who left though we know not to where, Gail, who fled to Dana Point in California, and a third, unnamed friend, who left with Gail. All three are gone, thus being “alone most of the time these days.” It’s a fairly blunt description of the narrator’s circumstances, though the immediate “you both committed suicide” may be a metaphor or just a dramatic way of saying what “leaving” can feel like to a friend.

If there was any doubt, it’s cleared up in the second verse. The narrator spends half the verse describing the beauty of a cow giving birth and caring for calves. It’s a gorgeous image, and it’s not the only use of cows as stand-ins for perfection in the world of John Darnielle. He doesn’t eat meat, and he waxes poetic about the animal world at live shows. Other than calling them “snow white” there is no attempted description of the cows, which suggests that John believes you’ll just take his word for it that this is a beautiful sight. It works.

The end of the song recalls the beginning, as the narrator is back at sunrise in Maine trying to consider what their friends “falling off that cliff somewhere in California” means. They may or may not be literally dead, but they are gone from their life, which is certainly its own kind of death. One last oddity: this may be the only narrator who has for sure never seen California, the holiest place in the world of the Goats. In that sense, they’re missing out twice.