Satanic Messiah

187. Sarcofago Live

Alex Russell Satanic Messiah , , , , , , , ,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57T6fMBBIxM

“Sarcofago Live” gets to the heart of what matters to a fan and how other things fall away.

Track: “Sarcofago Live”
Album: Satanic Messiah (2008)

You don’t have to like everything that your heroes like. John Darnielle loves boxing, metal, and Amy Grant. It is possible to love the music of John Darnielle without loving any of these things. I do not love any of those things, especially. I’m not against them, they just aren’t holy to me.

“Sarcofago Live” is a song about a Brazilian metal band called Sarcofago. Wikipedia defines them as an “extreme metal” band. All of their members have outrageous pseudonyms. There is an extended description of their first album cover and the designer who balked at putting a crown of thorns on it. They clearly earn their “extreme” descriptor.

I have never heard a Sarcofago song. I don’t think it’s crucial to hear one to understand this song. I’ve never seen Pinklon Thomas box, but I love “Pinklon.” I eventually saw the movie detailed in “The Lady from Shanghai” but the song didn’t change for me after seeing it. One requires many reference materials (a Bible chief among them) to get all of the references in a Mountain Goats song, but it doesn’t always change the impact.

“Sarcofago Live” finds characters who want to take part in the only thing that matters to them at the end of the proverbial rope. They are in a “concrete room” and they are waiting. They need no food. They need no task. They just need Sarcofago. I am confident that it is good music, for the people who need it. Nothing is purely good or bad, it is what it is for people who find it and need it. There may be no more meta interpretation of a Mountain Goats song, but what fan doesn’t know what it means to wait for the only thing worth waiting for?

084. Wizard Buys a Hat

Alex Russell Satanic Messiah , , , , , , ,

Spiritually connected to another album, “Wizard Buys a Hat” details the fear of a town that feels turned against you.

Track: “Wizard Buys a Hat”
Album: Satanic Messiah (2008)

I was fortunate enough to see John Darnielle play “Wizard Buys a Hat” in 2008. By way of introducing it, he talked about the great challenge of coming up with the peculiar title first and then trying to write a song that could live up to it. The title is a wonderful melding of mystical and mundane, and it definitely deserves consideration before you hear the song. Is it tongue in cheek? Is this an actual wizard (not necessarily a stretch, for these guys)? If nothing else, we get a curious image of a mythical creature doing something we’ve done many times.

It’s almost better left vague, but it’s possible to break down a little bit through the lyrics and some assorted Goats knowledge. John said in a different show in 2008 that the song is about his time in Portland, but one could interpret it as NYC, given 6th Street and Broadway. There’s even a “red steps” in NYC that helps the argument, but let us picture The City of Roses. It’s possible our main character stole something — maybe even a hat, if we want to think literally — and then fled back to Broadway. That’s certainly supported, given that he’s entered his “crucible” in the department store and then a crowd is looking for him.

Whatever the interpretation of the first two verses, the third is the payoff. This only works if you consider Portland the setting, but “Feel like this town’s gonna put a quick end to me” works for the character in We Shall All Be Healed. He’s running from addiction but not succeeding. The Portland album offers a lot of different perspectives, but “Wizard Buys a Hat” sums up the fiery anger and paranoia very well.

 

050. Satanic Messiah

Alex Russell Satanic Messiah , , , , , ,

“Satanic Messiah” isn’t about Obama, but the fact that anyone thinks it is prompts a larger discussion of song meanings.

Track: “Satanic Messiah”
Album: Satanic Messiah (2008)

It can seem impossible to get a straight answer for a lot of these. There are hundreds of songs, and even though John Darnielle has commented on most of them, he’s not always consistent. As all artists do, Darnielle has evolved over time and doesn’t feel the same way about some songs now. A song like “Going to Georgia” has to include both the fan obsession and the artist’s feelings to be completely understood, even though those aren’t always the same thing. It’s important to consider all sides of something, though that can get complicated.

The title track from Satanic Messiah, the four-song EP from 2008, requires an interesting inversion of that. It’s only a song about politics if you demand that it is, and Darnielle has said over and over that it’s not. He said in an interview that people are free to read his songs however they like, but that he hopes his view comes with “an extra bit of authority.” Lines like that get at the real difficulty of the process: you can’t be “right” or “wrong” if any reading is possible, can you? Fortunately, the catalog is more of a journey than a destination.

“Satanic Messiah” talks about the “pale-blue and washed out red” posters of a leader that makes the crowd feel young. That’s pretty much where the Obama comparisons stop, but that’s enough for a huge chunk of the fanbase to demand they’ve figured out the deeper meaning. From Darnielle’s lines about meaning in his work we can determine that you’re free to think that, but he’d like you to know that you’re deriving that meaning from a source that doesn’t have it. If you do want to get political, they’ve already done that.

040. Gojam Province 1968

Alex Russell Satanic Messiah , , , , , , , , ,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l75pioRWRAo

In the history of “Gojam Province 1968” people solve one problem only to find they can only do so much.

Track: “Gojam Province 1968”
Album: Satanic Messiah (2008)

Satanic Messiah is a four-song EP that contains a song called “Wizard Buys a Hat.” When he introduces the song live, John Darnielle sometimes mentions that he felt uniquely compelled to come up with something worthy of that title. It’s a great joke, but it doesn’t really prepare you for the rest of the EP. The albums are mostly thematic, but I haven’t found that the EPs follow anything like that. One of my favorites, Babylon Springs, has one song about a wrestler getting his righteous revenge on a world that has no use for him (“Ox Baker Triumphant”) and another about the sweetness of the “good” parts of infidelity (“Alibi”). The result is a bunch of great songs, but a puzzler when looking for a thread.

When you have a song like “Gojam Province 1968” you need no theme. It doesn’t go with “Wizard Buys a Hat” but it doesn’t really need to go with anything. In 1968, and, yes, in Gojam, the populace rose up against excessive taxes they were unable to afford. The government heard their pleas and met the resistance with reform. It’s a small victory in history, but a very big one for people who were “bashing in the heads of tax collectors.”

John Darnielle sings it softly and lightly plays a beautiful piano tune. For the last few years the band has been adding more and more quiet piano, which can sometimes feel at odds with the original one-man-stomping-and-destroying-a-guitar John Darnielle that many fans love. The best of the piano songs wouldn’t work any other way, though, and “Gojam Province 1968” needs to be this delicate. The end of the song leaves you with a “where do we go from here” feeling, and that’s the real point of this pretty song about ugliness.