Marsh Witch Visions

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.