Sweden

347. Send Me an Angel

Alex Russell Sweden , , , , , , ,

Despite the roses and chocolate, the two lovers in “Send Me an Angel” are not headed for a romantic day.

Track: “Send Me an Angel”
Album: Sweden (1995)

John Darnielle played “Send Me an Angel” in 2002 at The Empty Bottle in Chicago. It’s a very good version of the song and worth hearing. The ending repetition of “roses” over and over becomes extra haunting in this version and you really get a lot of time to wonder exactly what these characters are talking about and exactly what happened to lead to these competing ideas of roses and chocolate in a foreboding morning scene. Immediately after it, John Darnielle says “this is a love song” and plays “Jenny.”

Depending on the setting and the time period, John Darnielle may offer up explanation of a song or of a mood or something else. His stage banter is legendary and we could fill a book with great moments. This particular one goes uncommented on and is interesting to me only because of that fact. John Darnielle had to be in the right headspace to sell the very sad, wavering repetition at the end of “Send Me an Angel” and then shift gears into the pretty sweet, somewhat funny, “Jenny.” What was in his mind during that transition? What does he think about “Send Me an Angel?”

We don’t have much to go on, but it’s one of the sadder moments on Sweden. This is a song about the moment before the explosion. With just the lyrics, you could almost find it sweet. The vocals tell you otherwise, as a hushed John Darnielle sets us up to expect the worst even though the gifts make it seem like a happy occasion.

346. Sept 19th Triple X Love! Love!

Alex Russell Sweden , , , , , , ,

Formalities abound in “Sept 19th Triple X Love! Love!” as a character tries to remember a long-past time of love.

Track: “Sept 19th Triple X Love! Love!”
Album: Sweden (1995)

“Sept 19th Triple X Love! Love!” seems to me to be an indecipherable title. I’m sure it means something and it’s possible that it means something obvious that people have figured out and it’s just me. John Darnielle once said, before playing it live, that he couldn’t even pronounce the title. My best guess is that John Darnielle saw it on a sign somewhere and couldn’t determine the meaning, making it perfect for a strange song in the middle of an album called Sweden.

This is supposedly a sort of sister song to “The Recognition Scene,” the best (or second-best) song on Sweden. The title of the sister song is direct and has been frequently explained as the moment in a story that everyone realizes what is going to happen. “The Recognition Scene” imagines a moment where the ending is clear but has not yet arrived, which is a very familiar scene for Mountain Goats characters. “Sept 19th Triple X Love! Love!” finds a similar moment, but less directly clear. One character cuts down a tree at the command of another, but they think back to another time and a memory. “When you touched me I felt fire come through,” they say, but this is about another day. Here, in the present, we are performing necessary tasks and following directions. We only realize this as a sadness when contrasted with another moment.

345. Flashing Lights

Alex Russell Sweden , , , , , , ,

Leaving town is a metaphor and an actual plan in “Flashing Lights.”

Track: “Flashing Lights”
Album: Sweden (1995)

There are very few songs in the Mountain Goats catalog that describe uncomplicated, positive love. Usually, characters feel great, powerful, drawing force towards each other that sometimes resembles love, but it usually comes with months or years of creeping contempt and dread. That’s just how narrators are in John Darnielle’s world, though that is becoming less and less true in the “modern era” of the Mountain Goats.

Just as these folks are rarely purely in love, they are rarely directly antagonistic. It’s not uncommon for a song to show us a relationship on the downswing, but we generally don’t see it too far along that curve. “Flashing Lights” is a rare song in that way. “You swear you’re leaving town,” one says to the other, but “empty promises // empty promises,” they amend.

Every song on Sweden has a Swedish “subtitle” in the liner notes. The line for “Flashing Lights” is simply “the coldest winter.” There are other songs where people physically fight or songs where people hurl crueler barbs than this one, but it really is powerful to hear one person tell another that they swore they’d leave but they didn’t. It’s very much within John Darnielle’s wheelhouse to have that character stay as long as the other does, however. Our narrator asks the other one why they haven’t left, but we infer from that they also aren’t leaving. “Why haven’t you left” is a question that reflects back on the speaker, telling us this story isn’t over even if they say it is.

344. Deianara Crush

Alex Russell Sweden , , , , , , , ,

One lover tells another about what happened to Hercules and what it means for them in “Deianara Crush.”

Track: “Deianara Crush”
Album: Sweden (1995)

Deianira, or Deianara, or any number of other spellings of the same name, was Hercules’ wife. As you can somewhat gather from “Deianara Crush,” Hercules died burning in a flaming shirt. The full story tells us that Deianira wanted to ensure that Hercules would be eternally faithful to her and a trickster centaur assured her that mixing his blood with olive oil would do just that. It did, in a sense, as a shirt with this concoction on it burned Hercules forever, which killed him. It wasn’t what she had in mind, but it did, in fact, end his ability to run around on her.

“Deianara Crush” finds two people thinking about this myth and what it means. One tells the other how Hercules died and the other says “that’s something I’d rather not be reminded of.” As with other songs from Sweden, John Darnielle’s vocals are especially on point with some signature whine on the vowels in “Hercules,” but it’s the finality of the last line that really sells the song. We don’t spend a lot of time with these two and we don’t get any concrete details that tell us how we got here, but what a scene we do get. Imagine your partner, silent for a time, then saying your name in a unique way, only to give way to a story about how, in chasing a perfect love, a mythical figure destroyed the greatest hero of all time. You can draw many things from this moment and the meaning behind it, none of them good.

343. Some Swedish Trees

Alex Russell Sweden , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle and Rachel Ware really sell the feeling of “Some Swedish Trees.”

Track: “Some Swedish Trees”
Album: Sweden (1995)

It’s sometimes strange to listen to the Sweden era of the Mountain Goats these days. The energy is the same, but it was a totally different band when it was just John Darnielle and Rachel Ware. “Some Swedish Trees” opens with a false start and John asking Rachel if she didn’t want to start that way and Rachel saying they never start that way. There are a few songs with these asides left on the recording and they add some character. The Mountain Goats aren’t “better” or “worse” these days, but they are undeniably more polished. You don’t get these little jokes now.

Rachel’s distinctive bass makes this song go, though you still might hear it today as part of the solo set, as John Darnielle played it at this Chicago show in 2018. The vocals are strong, with the extended vowels on lines like “if you were gazing westward” that only John Darnielle can sell. The studio version really shows off Rachel and John’s harmony, though, and I think it’s the quintessential version even with the intentional goof up top.

You could dismiss it as just another song where two people from California see each other and comment on some other things briefly. It definitely is that, but it’s sung with more passion than the others in this category. It’s brief, but I keep revisiting it just to hear the swells, similar to what makes “There Will Always Be an Ireland” special. There doesn’t need to be a lot going on beneath the surface because what does happen is so intense.

327. California Song

Alex Russell Sweden , , , , , , ,

As good as anthem as any Mountain Goats song, “California Song” shows us a frozen moment in time.

Track: “California Song”
Album: Sweden (1995)

The version of “California Song” on Sweden is pretty, but it requires you to look past the era-appropriate digital preset background. Maybe that part is charming to you the way it is on excellent preset songs like “Going to Malibu.” It’s a nice beat behind a sweet song and that is good enough. It should be good enough, at least, but that’s if you haven’t heard it any other way.

For a time, “California Song” was a closer. You can see the best version of that at this show in California in 2008. Peter Hughes plays the bassline and John Darnielle whispers the first verse before eschewing the mic and singing the rest into the crowd as they softly sing it back to him. The entire room knows this song, as he predicts by telling them they all know it. Some of that’s the location and some of that’s the venue and some of that’s the song, but all of it is the recognition that the room is going to know a song that’s this central to the experience.

I don’t think this one “unlocked” for me until I saw that performance. The original is truly beautiful, but there’s something about the passion from the show that brings a line like “as white as household bleach” to life. It all ends up with a reference to another song, which wasn’t uncommon at the time for John Darnielle, but the overall feeling being conveyed is 100% Mountain Goats.

292. Neon Orange Glimmer Song

Alex Russell Sweden , , , , , , ,

“Neon Orange Glimmer Song” won’t tell you what happened, but it will tell you everything else.

Track: “Neon Orange Glimmer Song”
Album: Sweden (1995)

There are a dozen websites where people post lyrics and folks try to guess what they mean, but SongMeanings was the first one I found when I was younger. The page for “Neon Orange Glimmer Song” has a long, thoughtful attempt from one user who thinks it’s about someone who killed someone in self defense. It also has a much shorter one where someone says “well this song is vague but some guy made a mistake while a capsicum pepper was in the backyard.”

I love this comment. It’s a joke, for sure, but it’s also a statement about John Darnielle’s love of unrelated storytelling. The thoughtful explanation assumes the pepper plant represents a murderer trying to stay grounded to keep their story straight. The shorter one says dude, it’s a pepper plant. They’re both right. There are tons of Mountain Goats songs that use this device. Why is it a pepper plant here and why is it sometimes water boiling? Don’t worry about it. Or do, it’s your call.

Whether you think there’s a lot happening here or nothing at all, our narrator is stressed. They’ve done something, but we don’t know what it is. It’s specific with details that ground it as a real story about a real person, but the one thing we’d need to understand if they’re right or wrong is missing. John Darnielle really sells the tension and Rachel Ware’s vocals fill out the experience, but you’re always going to be missing the center. What you think happened is exactly what happened, or it can be if you need it to be.

178. The Recognition Scene

Alex Russell Sweden , , , , , , ,

“The Recognition Scene” chooses an unlikely location to show us a familiar event in our lives.

Track: “The Recognition Scene”
Album: Sweden (1995)

Sweden opens with a couple stealing candy from a store. In “The Recognition Scene,” they grab huge quantities of garbage food and drive around eating it, unsure of what their actions mean. It’s an interesting crime, and the seemingly low stakes nature of it doesn’t tell us if these are hardened criminals or just normal junkies.

The key to “The Recognition Scene” is in the refrain: “I’m gonna miss you when you’re gone.” The narrator senses that an end is coming, even if it’s at least months away. They describe a “three-month ride” after the robbery, so we know as an audience that there is time to come. That doesn’t necessarily mean it will be happy time, of course, and continued presence of characters in Mountain Goats songs definitely doesn’t imply that it will always be a positive experience.

A “recognition scene” is a moment in film or literature where one or more characters has a sudden flash of understanding. It can mean a big reveal (he was dead the whole time) or a more subtle one (he’s not the man I thought he was). In this case, we don’t know what the characters learn about each other. They might not know themselves, as the narrator says “I saw something written in tall clear letters on your face // but I could not break the code.”

It is enough to know that this scene told the narrator it is going to be over, eventually. In bad stories characters explode and yell at each other to signify the end, but more often it is like this. They both know, from this moment filled with illegal Snickers and Skittles, it is not going to last, but there’s still three-plus months to go.

176. Cold Milk Bottle

Alex Russell Sweden , , , , , , ,

 

Our narrator insists that they’re making it okay after a toxic situation in “Cold Milk Bottle.”

Track: “Cold Milk Bottle”
Album: Sweden (1995)

I talk about live shows a lot because they’re so fascinating. “Cold Milk Bottle” has been played at least twice, and was recorded at this New York show in 1997. The setlist from that night is outstanding, and it’s hard not to smile at the fact that right after “Cold Milk Bottle” John Darnielle rants at the crowd to stop requesting “Going to Georgia” because they’ve all heard it “at least twice.” Considering that’s how he felt in 1997, it’s amazing it stayed in the rotation for as long as it did.

On that night in New York in 1997, John Darnielle’s voice cracked several times. The best moment is during the “You’re mean to me // why must you be mean to me?” moment in “Cold Milk Bottle” because it feels very real. Most of the characters on Sweden are difficult, challenging people, and “Cold Milk Bottle” ends the album for a reason. One character sends “another goddamned message” to another and neither of them is happy about it. This relationship is over, hopefully, and the animosity is all that remains.

“I feel all right” is a powerful refrain. “Well, despite your best efforts, I feel all right” is even more powerful. When we listen to “Cold Milk Bottle,” we feel for the speaker. We know what it feels like to be haunted by someone else and the strength it takes to shout back into the void about how fine we are. This character leaves Sweden demanding that they’re okay and that they don’t care who knows it. There are more powerful, more insistent messages among the more recent Goats songs, but it’s nice to know that even an early narrator made it out alive.

172. Prana Ferox

Alex Russell Sweden , , , , , ,

“Prana Ferox” is about a tub of whiskey that’s both a metaphor and a catalyst for bad things to come.

Album: Sweden (1995)
Track: “Prana Ferox”

It could be a drinking song, but most of them could be drinking songs. John Darnielle says “Prana Ferox” is “about alcohol,” and it certainly follows a narrator checking on a home distilling project. While they peer into a vat of whiskey, their lover is upstairs “with [your] head against the sink // trying to cool down // trying to cool down.” The song dissolves into chaotic guitar as the narrator ponders the disparity between the “new life” in the vat of sour mash and their own situation.

Is it a drinking song? Not really, at least not in the way most bands would write one. No one drinks anything and the alcohol itself hasn’t even arrived yet. That doesn’t mean the alcohol doesn’t explain something about the relationship. There’s nothing inherently troubling about a couple making whiskey in their basement, but you can hear in John Darnielle’s wailing final verse that these two are anxious for this project to complete.

“Prana” means “life force” and “ferox” means “savage,” very roughly. “Prana Ferox” drops us in the middle of another troubled relationship, but also opens with an inspirational sample from what sounds like a meditation tape. The sample promises us we’ll be okay today. It’s especially relevant for these two, since they probably will be okay today. The narrator delivers “I know you don’t believe me, but I could hear you breathing” with a mixture of hope and trepidation. Alcohol serves as a temporary solution for many doomed Mountain Goats couples, but rarely is it this direct. We know as an audience that it is all for naught, but you do get the sense that there are still desperate last-ditch attempts to come in the drunken nights that tub will enable.