Songs for Pierre Chuvin

500. Exegetic Chains

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The experience of listening to and loving the Mountain Goats is all there in “Exegetic Chains.”

Track: “Exegetic Chains”
Album: Songs for Pierre Chuvin (2020)

“Exegetic Chains” drops all of the structure of the album. There are still references that make it feel “right” with the rest of Songs for Pierre Chuvin (Hercules, Cybele) but it’s about the Mountain Goats, John Darnielle, and the fans of both. Darnielle has said that any references are “there on purpose,” but you don’t really need to hear that to know it. “Make it through this year // if it kills you outright” is “This Year,” clearly, but it’s also directly about the experience of living in 2020. It hasn’t been two full years as of this writing since this album came out. These emotions, these situations, all still feel very real.

Darnielle almost whispers most of “Exegetic Chains.” It’s hard to explain the feeling, here. When you hear him tell the listener to “stay warm inside the ripple // of the Panasonic hum,” he is telling you that you should listen to Songs for Pierre Chuvin, here, in April of 2020, when everything feels uncertain. When you hear “the places where we met to share // our secrets now and then // we will see them again,” he is directly referencing a Mountain Goats concert. This one’s a guess, but I extend this even to “the songs you sing at Christmas time // the stories that you tell” to be about the band’s relationship to fans.

The entire song is intertextual, which explains the title, but it’s not really a puzzle to be solved. You’ll pick up on all this on the first listen. What’s more to the point is this is something people needed to hear, then, and still do, now. The album was a gift, but this, this is something more.

499. Going to Lebanon 2

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“Going to Lebanon 2” recalls a song from decades earlier, but it recalls a time much older than that.

Track: “Going to Lebanon 2”
Album: Songs for Pierre Chuvin (2020)

There are about a dozen “sequel” Mountain Goats songs. You can generally tell because they explicitly have numbers in the title, usually “2.” It’s probably not something you need me to call out that “Going to Lebanon 2” is the sequel to “Going to Lebanon,” but I do think it’s interesting that both versions have been officially released. In the case of “Insurance Fraud #2” there is no #1, it’s just the second take and the one that the band kept. For “Heel Turn 2,” there is a “Heel Turn 1,” but it’s in many ways an opposite song and a live-only track. We could go on.

The point is, it’s deliberate. The band wants you to associate these two songs. The original suggests a sweetness, with the Bright Mountain Choir singing behind John Darnielle and a more romantic, possibly, interpretation. It’s easy to see that in a lot of those songs with the call-and-response dynamic, but even if that reading isn’t correct, it’s inarguably got a different tone than the second version. “Going to Lebanon 2” seems to follow people who are on the brink of an ending, similar to other narrators across the album. The difference is in what is suggested. The way I read it, the narrators are judging their conquerors for not understanding the value of what they have. “Remember our grandfathers // whenever we need a reason,” suggests holding on to traditions, not looking for gold and silver. Perhaps this is an oversimplification, but I read it as a form of inner rebellion. They may take what they think you value, but they can’t take what actually matters as long as you’re willing to keep it.

498. Their Gods Do Not Have Surgeons

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The narrators in “Their Gods Do Not Have Surgeons” see the writing on the wall and are worried about what it means.

Track: “Their Gods Do Not Have Surgeons”
Album: Songs for Pierre Chuvin (2020)

You cannot make many sweeping statements about the Mountain Goats without running into contradictions. I want to say that the characters in these songs have become quieter and more introspective over time, but I’m not sure that’s true. I do feel a sense, having listened to the entire history again, song by song, for years now, that the characters have evolved the way we all evolve. As we age, one would hope, we become more aware of our responsibility in situations. The early narrators are angry that people don’t connect with them but the more recent ones start to understand they are part of the problem. There are obviously problems with that thesis, but allow it to me, for a minute.

The narrators across Songs for Pierre Chuvin do not fit into either part of this because they are presented, largely, as blameless. An invading force takes them out. Darnielle’s perspective is to present their last moments and their rebellion before it all goes away. “Their Gods Do Not Have Surgeons” finds a plea from the conquered to the conquerors to ask them to show the mercy that they supposedly bring. Further than that, the song demands basic ideas that the new civilization supposedly prides themselves on: beauty, peace, community.

It’s not that these narrators need to be contrite, it’s that the delivery of the song tells us they think this approach might work. At the very least, bluster and open rebellion isn’t an option anymore. Those are easy, even appropriate, responses. But what do you have left when that fails?

497. Hopeful Assassins of Zeno

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“Hopeful Assassins of Zeno” sounds like a song from thirty years earlier, but it’s so much more.

Track: “Hopeful Assassins of Zeno”
Album: Songs for Pierre Chuvin (2020)

The circumstances that led to Songs for Pierre Chuvin and the style of recording make it feel like an early Mountain Goats album. In the early days, John Darnielle recorded impulsively, at home, and the resulting songs all feel like little miracles. They aren’t all excellent, but the energy behind them elevates the ones that aren’t. It’s not exactly a huge statement to say this newer album sounds like those because it was also recorded in just a few days, at home, but when you hear a song like “Hopeful Assassins of Zeno” the comparison breaks down.

John Darnielle could not write like this as a younger man. That’s no insult, because this is a remarkable set of lyrics and a remarkable song. Some of the very first songs, especially “Going to Alaska,” are among the best, but those felt more like poems because they were, actually, poems. It isn’t that John Darnielle has universally, directionally gotten better. It’s more that he found what worked almost immediately, but has refined it over and over for decades.

“Get familiar with affairs of state // foretell the future // get a pretty good success rate” is a simple set of lines, but you understand this narrator as they say it. Darnielle’s voice is serious, but he allows that to sound like the tiny joke it is. The story here is in the title, but the mood is consistent with the rest of the album. What sets it apart is the evolution from decades ago to today, not the story itself. The characters have always been like this, but now their plights feel just a little larger.

496. January 31, 438

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“January 31, 438” imagines that change happens on one day, with a past before it and a future after it.

Track: “January 31, 438”
Album: Songs for Pierre Chuvin (2020)

The Codex Theodosianus was published on or about January 31, 438, thus the title of “January 31, 438.” The text was an official collection of laws for Rome, but it was also an official, deliberate attempt to solidify Christianity and to be clear that the days of the pagans were done. Given the source material for Songs for Pierre Chuvin, we can tell all that without needing to go much deeper.

The lyrics show us someone in their desperation, understanding and maybe accepting that they are doomed. The album’s larger context draws the camera back even more to tell us that this is not a personal problem. This is bigger than that. Everyone who is like this narrator is on the way out, which is hammered home on every song on the album. The message is consistent.

What makes “January 31, 438” different is the specificity. I’ve said this before, but I maintain that the thing that makes a Mountain Goats song truly great is specificity. It’s when you know you’re at a specific street corner or in a specific city or dealing with one, undeniable moment, that’s when you feel the electricity. This was a day in history where everything was one way before and was another way after. As we see across the rest of the album it wasn’t really that sudden, but a song being titled like this forces us to imagine how sharp that difference might have felt to an individual person who was confronting what feels, to us, with some distance, like a long, flowing tide.

495. The Wooded Hills Along the Black Sea

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John Darnielle breaks out the old looping Casio for “The Wooded Hills Along the Black Sea”.

Track: “The Wooded Hills Along the Black Sea”
Album: Songs for Pierre Chuvin (2020)

You can watch John Darnielle play the Casio that you hear in “The Wooded Hills Along the Black Sea” in this brief Instagram video. He said that this song is “practically indistinguishable from a 1994 song” except for the bridge. You really do feel that, even more than the others on the album, as this feels like it would make sense along some of the older jams about seals and Chino and all that. If you know, then you know.

The song follows people in exile from the empire, most clearly in the best lines: “the burden of exile // gets easy to bear // sometimes forget // there’s cities down there.” After several songs about living under the thumb of empire, “The Wooded Hills Along the Black Sea” shows us another way people can rebel. You don’t have to spit food down your sleeve and look at the columns, you can go out into the woods and run. Obviously the word “exile” suggests that maybe it wasn’t that deliberate a choice, but whatever led to the leaving, these people have left.

The Casio is what makes this song notable. It’s the only one on the album that eschews the guitar for the odd, looping keyboard sound that Darnielle used sparingly on early stuff. It evokes a nostalgia that is more important than the sound itself. It’ll never be my favorite song on the album, but what an amazing thing to hear, decades later. What a testament to Darnielle’s songwriting that it still feels so right.

494. For the Snakes

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The end of all things is a big idea, but the snakes have to wait until they can come back in “For the Snakes.”

Track: “For the Snakes”
Album: Songs for Pierre Chuvin (2020)

There are a few universal messages across Songs for Pierre Chuvin, but the most central one is about how we look back on history. These events happened almost two thousand years ago. These people are gone. There are remnants, but they are just that: remnants. “For the Snakes” finds literal snakes, a symbol for what outlasts all of us, I think, slithering across the ruins of a fallen empire. The use of the word “ruins” tells you all you need to know. It’s over for these people.

You can watch a recording of “For the Snakes” on Facebook from March of 2020, before the album was released. It’s only been a couple of years but already I feel like people will have a different experience with this album if they didn’t see that video when it first came out. In a lot of ways we’re still in it, obviously, but March of 2020 felt like the start of the end of the world. “For the Snakes” is a memento mori in that way, a reminder that there is an “after” that comes after a time you think is never going to end. You have to think that way, because you’re here right now. In a lot of ways it’s impossible to imagine the end, because if you really could imagine it, wouldn’t you try to stop it? The Romans could not imagine it and could not stop it. It will happen to all of us, but for now, the snakes have to wait.

493. Last Gasp at Calama

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“Last Gasp at Calama” deals with the hypocrisy of invaders explaining how great things with in their peaceful ways.

Track: “Last Gasp at Calama”
Album: Songs for Pierre Chuvin (2020)

“Last Gasp at Calama” references Matthew 7:2, which is the classic verse that tells people not to judge others, lest you be judged yourself. Specifically, the verse says “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” John Darnielle quotes it directly and says “so you say, and it’s true.” The narrator here is reacting to a conquering force with a doctrine that focuses on love and understanding but, well, the force is conquering you.

There are hundreds of songs by other bands that have this same message but feel just as preachy as the message they are rebelling against. “Last Gasp at Calama” is direct, for sure, but it’s crafted from the perspective of someone who is often lost to history. The narrator is “out in the street // free and young” when they meet the new “humorless men” that are conquering their city in what we now call Algeria. We think of events thousands of years ago as happening between nations, but this is a bunch of specific guys impacting one specific person. That’s a unique way to tell the story.

The narrator knows what’s coming, as does almost everyone in Songs for Pierre Chuvin. They know their time is limited, but they also think that their conquerors will get theirs, eventually. The album repeats this message in different ways, but it’s nice here to spend a moment with someone who hopes that before the eventual downfall, maybe someone can chuck some rocks at these specific dudes.

492. Until Olympius Returns

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The fabled hero may or may not come back in “Until Olympius Returns,” but the Romans aren’t here forever either way.

Track: “Until Olympius Returns”
Album: Songs for Pierre Chuvin (2020)

Olympius was a key figure in the execution of Stilicho, a powerful figure in the Roman Empire around the year 400. Stilicho has a lengthy, detailed Wikipedia page. Olympius does not. He also does not appear on Stilicho’s page, despite seemingly being the reason this powerful, world-defining figure died. It is fascinating to see how history is told. What matters for “Until Olympius Returns” is that Olympius is a symbol for rebellion.

The song functions as a sort of instruction manual for biding your time under hostile leadership. “Nod in agreement when the tyrant holds forth” is an obvious one, but it’s also about how you make time for yourself by spitting their food down your sleeve and wait for the world to change back. The Romans conquered the world, but then they lost it. You can’t know that when you’re in the middle of things, but Songs for Pierre Chuvin again and again reminds you that on a long enough timeline, it all goes away.

Olympius, supposedly, was “clubbed to death” by Constantius III, who only reigned for seven months and is one of hundreds of leaders over hundreds of years of various empires that came and went. What I love about “Until Olympius Returns” is the mix of dire need and vast perspective. This matters, right now, but largely, these guys are on the way out. Eat the food and look at the temple, sure, but you don’t really have to worry about this. Time will take care of it, whether the hero comes back or not.

491. Aulon Raid

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“Aulon Raid” is about triumph that won’t last forever, but it will definitely last for today.

Track: “Aulon Raid”
Album: Songs for Pierre Chuvin (2020)

“Aulon Raid” is the first song from Songs for Pierre Chuvin, a unique album in that John Darnielle wrote it solo and released it at the start of what seemed like dark times. He made it quickly and released it immediately and you feel that immediacy as you listen to it. I write this to you in 2022, two years later with not all that much changed. It still feels immediate.

The whole album reminds you that nothing gold can stay, which makes “Aulon Raid” a perfect opener. Darnielle says he wrote the title for the song and the rest flowed out of him, in just a few days. We hear the narrator express a common emotion for a Mountain Goats narrator as they insist they and their compatriots will “deal with you” over and over. These people are going to win the fight. You should feel great comfort in this fact if you’re with them and you should feel great fear as the opposition.

The thing is, you win the battle, but you lose the war. The title of the album comes from the author of A Chronicle of the Last Pagans, a book Darnielle was reading at the time. It’s right there in the title that the pagans don’t make it, but you know that, too. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t yell proudly, and in fact you should celebrate this day where you sent home the enemy commander on their back. It won’t work forever, but it’s working right now. Right now might just be enough.