Unreleased

602. Song from the Shoreline

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

“Song from the Shoreline” is brief, but it’s powerful, and it serves as a way into so much more.

Track: “Song from the Shoreline”
Album: Unreleased

If you were at Simplon, in Groningen on a specific Wednesday in 1995, you saw this show, where John Darnielle and Rachel Ware played 14 songs. Simplon is still there, three decades later, and, at the time of this writing, is hosting a drum and bass show right this second. YouTube user notasfarwest digitized the show from a tape and uploaded it here a few years ago. I’ve probably watched it all the way through five times. The video is incredible, both that the quality is this good for what had to be just some VHS tape in a stack somewhere and that it exists at all. People seem to believe this is the earliest footage you can find and if it isn’t, it’s at least close.

They opened with “Song from the Shoreline,” which is more of a snippet than a song. The delivery at that show in the Netherlands is passionate and arresting. It feels like a song designed to gather attention and to segue into something else. At that show, that something else was “The Recognition Scene,” one of the best songs the band has ever written, still, here in a world of 600+ songs. I love the simplicity of “Song from the Shoreline” but simplicity leaves little to say. It’s enough to just go watch it and to picture someone making this tape all those years ago and wondering if they could imagine the lifespan.

601. Going Back to California

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

“Going Back to California” tells both the story of a death and the story of a survivor.

Track: “Going Back to California”
Album: Unreleased

First things first: John Darnielle put out a version of “Going Back to California” with a call to support a pro-choice charity in 2016 here, on Tumblr, so if you do not already do so, please do so. The situation is certainly no better here in 2024 than it was in 2016, so now, more than ever. This is not the only song released to support a worthy cause, but I call it out especially because of the path from there to here. Additionally, it’s worth reading Darnielle’s original post to see his forecast of the Ozzy Osbourne material he’d recently written that would not see the light of day soon. It didn’t turn out that way, but who could have known that, then?

“Going Back to California” is about a fatal plane crash. Rather, I suppose, it’s about the reaction to the plane crash that took Randy Rhoads’ life as well as their makeup artist and the pilot, who had done cocaine and talked people into joining him for stunt flights over the band’s tour bus. The song tells us Ozzy’s reaction to Rhoads’ death and the fear it creates for the coming days. It’s a fairly direct song that even includes the anecdote that Rhoads told Ozzy that he was going to drink himself to death if he didn’t slow down. This is more than a recounting of events with that final verse, where we go inside the teller and imagine the apprehension of going on. There is a tomorrow for you, even when there isn’t for those around you.

600. We Shall All Be Healed

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

“We Shall All Be Healed” finds our songwriter going back home again, literally, and drawing a line from A to B.

Track: “We Shall All Be Healed”
Album: Unreleased

Also called “Rose Quarter Drifting,” the unreleased title track “We Shall All Be Healed” recalls the part of Portland John Darnielle lived in during the times described on that album. He lived in what are now the Paramount Apartments, where someone recently (as of this writing) left a review of the place that references “Beat the Devil” that the owner of the property did not get. The owner did reply with “In almost 30 years, things change for the better. Thank goodness there’s no more of that here,” however. I suppose it’s open to debate if that person is referencing the song or the source material John Darnielle actually lived through, but we digress.

This song describes physically going home and wondering what, if any, of you is in there. “You weren’t there, and neither was anybody else” is a helluva line for something so simple, because no one is there if you go home. Someone else could probably break down all the names we hear in this song but the point is neither who they are or where this specific place is. You can go there, if you want. I did, a decade or so ago, because I was in Portland and was curious. It’s just another place, for me. It’s more than that for the man who wrote this song and lived that life. You do not need to go to the Paramount Apartments. You can just listen to the stories that came from there and, if you need to or want to, go to where “it all flared out,” for you.

599. Rescue Breathing

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

“Rescue Breathing” is a cut track from We Shall All Be Healed that takes us uncomfortably close.

Track: “Rescue Breathing”
Album: Unreleased

John Darnielle has said that We Shall All Be Healed was the first album where he was knowingly writing songs from personal experience. Some of what he wrote was too personal and he wasn’t ready to include those, which includes “Rescue Breathing.” When you consider what did make the cut this can seem a strange statement, but I think this comes from the repetition of hearing those songs again and again. If you’ve heard a song like “Mole” dozens of times you get away from the reality of what happens in that song. The album cuts are devastating and brutal, so what of the ones that are even more personal than that?

Rescue breathing is mouth-to-mouth, a life-saving technique that is referenced here both as metaphor and as literal action where one person brings John Darnielle back to life. “There was no tenderness, no good night kiss,” we hear, just literal, necessary physical action done because it had to be done. We’re in the room for this moment and we get the answer to our question. There’s no emotional distance here. There’s just what happened: the trip to get the stuff and then the thing that happens when you use the stuff.

598. Hand of Death

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , , ,

“Hand of Death” is a brutal name for a song that’s actually about a lot of hope.

Track: “Hand of Death”
Album: Unreleased

It feels weird to call a Mountain Goats album “personal” because of the kind of guy John Darnielle is. You could just as easily flip that comment and wonder what the least “personal” album is, right? That said, In League with Dragons is a personal one no matter your scale and thus it is of special interest that “Hand of Death” was the first song written for the album and did not ultimately make the cut.

You can still watch the Facebook Live performance from a hotel room that appears to have an iPod alarm clock in 2018 where Matt Douglass and John Darnielle perform “Hand of Death” and say it has never been played “live or anywhere, by anybody.” At a concert later, Darnielle says John Vanderslice was running the Facebook at the time and was shocked by the positive response that was so immediate. This feels especially fascinating given the proximity to the years of Jordan Lake sessions and pandemic streams and lack of live interaction that no one could see coming at the time but would define the band’s output for a few years to come.

The song itself is potentially about the early years of Darnielle’s songwriting and the title seems to me to be a reference to a Magic: The Gathering card that can destroy (almost) any one living thing. I don’t want to dig too far into that (or most titles) but you can imagine the gusto of the moment that would become what it all became.

597. Acceptable Damages Sutra

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

A familiar moment between familiar characters sparks an unfamiliar emotion in “Acceptable Damages Sutra.”

Track: “Acceptable Damages Sutra”
Album: Unreleased

When the Mountain Goats had to cancel an Australian tour, John Darnielle released a few songs on the band’s forum as a make-good. You can find that post archived here, which makes me feel a certain way on this January morning in the distant future where the archive that site exists on feels especially imperiled. We’ve talked a lot in this space about the act of archiving and what it means to lose something forever (or never have it) and if that archive does eventually go away, I personally feel it’ll be a tremendous loss for us all.

One of those songs was “Acceptable Damages Sutra,” which Darnielle notes based on the guitar has to be from January 2003 or later. This puts it post-Tallahassee but likely pre-We Shall All Be Healed, especially based on the subject matter. Here in the first week of a new year (though one two decades later) we can really relate to this narrator. They have “high hopes // for the coming year” but, of course, “nothing ever really changes here.” We’re pretty firmly in “The Mess Inside” territory here if we view this as a romantic relationship, though here we are confronted with the fact that there could be a solution, if these two had the strength to solve it. They don’t, though, and we get a rare instance where someone approaches, at least, confronting their own involvement in their situation. At that point, we’re back at the title and we realize this person knows what they’re getting into, just the same as all the other Goats narrators.

596. Whon

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

“Whon” uses a ghost town in Texas as a reminder that all things have a chance to fade.

Track: “Whon”
Album: Unreleased

“Whon” exists solely as this recording at Zoop II, a benefit concert from 2009 that we have discussed at length here before. John Darnielle asks someone to come up and hold the lyrics for him and tells the crowd that the song isn’t actually finished and he’s going to finish it right now. The lyrics are ready, but that crowd in that moment hears the chords for the first time. Zoop is a special thing, but even beyond that this is an unheard of moment. That was fifteen years ago as of this writing and as far as it seems, that’s all there is to “Whon.”

The title comes from a town in Texas that was named Whon by mistake as a misunderstanding after an attempt to name something after a worker named Juan. There are a lot of really interesting resources out there that detail the history of Whon, including this charming website full of first-hand accounts but also the Google Street View of the area. I recommend taking a virtual drive around nearby Rockwood, Texas which was photographed in 2008 and 2023. In examples like this one, you can watch Whon (or nearby) change in just that short time. Our narrator in “Whon” is equally fascinated with the passage of time and what happens when everyone leaves. You can see it as barns and lean-tos are in one photograph, but, like so many things, they’re gone by the next one.

595. Edvard Munch

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

The unreleased “Edvard Munch” finds a lonely person on a lonely morning, but doesn’t reveal how we got there.

Track: “Edvard Munch”
Album: Unreleased

I can’t prove this, but it feels like this one was written backwards from that repeated line. There’s power in a phrase like “there was nothing good in your going” and you feel it before you consider what it means. There are so many songs from the early days that feel like this one, which explains the comment on the wiki that John Darnielle at times would mix this song up with another one when introducing it. The title “Edvard Munch” is obviously the painter and almost certainly has nothing to do with the song, though you could certainly choose to believe this is about the famous painting.

What we have here is another narrator who is telling us about someone leaving. We rarely hear from the person leaving and this is no exception. We just get the visuals as this narrator soaks in the world of Norway and watches them leave. What led to this moment, we wonder, and does our narrator deserve this fate? Like so many other songs from these days we aren’t going to find out, but the surrounding texts definitely put a finger on the scale.

594. Song for God

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

“Song for God” almost doesn’t exist and didn’t get released for lack of one simple word.

Track: “Song for God”
Album: Unreleased

John Darnielle has said that “Song for God” was cut from All Hail West Texas. Beyond that, he’s said that it was cut, maybe not solely because of, but because of the line “it takes two days or better to walk across its length.” It’s supposed to be “it takes two days or better to drive across its length.” I have driven from New Mexico to Louisiana and yes, it does take two days or better to drive it. You probably could have worked that out on your own. But then again, you probably would have just recorded it again and fixed “walk” to “drive” the next time. But you and I are not John Darnielle.

I don’t think “Song for God” is better than any song on All Hail West Texas and I think it makes sense to leave it off. It has some beautiful turns of phrase in it, especially “no way of saying what they’re supposed to represent” as the narrator watches the dust and wonders what it all means. It’s a lovely little song but the story of this exclusion is so fascinating. It fits with so many other stories about John Darnielle’s mercurial approach to album construction but it also makes you think about all the things that are on the proverbial cutting room floor. “Song for God” is nice, but just imagine everything you’ll never hear! It’s beautiful, in a way, and I love that, despite my nature and love of cataloging.

593. Deserters

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

The unreleased demo “Deserters” sets the stage for We Shall All Be Healed and draws a picture of one night in that world.

Track: “Deserters”
Album: Unreleased (released by John Darnielle online as a holiday gift in 2005)

The characters in “Deserters” are the characters that would become We Shall All Be Healed. John Darnielle released the song online in 2005 and said as much, calling it a demo that “sparked the We Shall All Be Healed album” and added that it “has a number of images that are sort of touchstones for me.” It feels like a cousin to “Home Again Garden Grove” to me, another song about battle plans and the insistence of moving forward even among destruction. Here we have similar paranoia and dark hopes for the future and a sense that not just what comes next, but what comes right now is going to be very bad.

The duo hang out and watch a televangelist and spend some time “trying to better ourselves” before “giving up after one or two tries.” They use the knowledge that the cops are done trying to bust up the local element and the presence of a map of the surrounding area as enough of a sign that the “future’s disarmingly bright.” We know that’s probably not the case, but it’s hard to argue with the findings.

“Deserters” has such an eerie vibe, but the most powerful piece of it, to me, is the follow up line to a wild claim that the local high school is full of Japanese gangsters. “Everyone, everyone knows it,” our narrator says, echoing so many people you have probably met in your life who double down in times like these. We’ll hear a lot more about these folks and folks like them in future songs, but we’ll never get a clearer picture of these nights than that, right there.