205. Song for Mark and Joel

Alex Russell Beautiful Rat Sunset , , , , , ,

“Song for Mark and Joel” is for Mark and Joel, but it’s also for that creeping dread you try to avoid.

Track: “Song for Mark and Joel”
Album: Beautiful Rat Sunset (1994)

The Mark and Joel of “Song for Mark and Joel” are Mark Givens and Joel Huschle of Wckr Spgt, a band that’s closely associated with the Mountain Goats. John Darnielle gets a specific mention on the “other artists” page of their website. It says that John Darnielle and Peter Hughes are “really doing wonders in the world of rock and roll,” which you may assume I agree with based on the whole point of this thing.

I haven’t listened to much Wckr Spgt, but it’s easy to see how John Darnielle fell in love. One of their recent albums includes a song called “Skin, the First Line of Defense.” That really says it all.

When John Darnielle plays “Song for Mark and Joel” he often says some variant of “this is a song I wrote for Mark and Joel and it is called ‘Song for Mark and Joel.'” It’s a dry comment, but it says a lot about the man that wrote a song for two friends in 1994 and may not have imagined he’d be playing it for hundreds of people night after night twenty-five years later.

The opening lyrics describe a natural setting. It’s pure early Mountain Goats: a bird (not a robin, but close) sits on a branch and a narrator feels a vaguely troubling sensation. By the second verse our narrator is in a room full of maps. Quickly, they tell us about a sense of cold and begin “pondering connections.” John Darnielle doesn’t give us enough to decipher what’s happening, but it ends up being a powerful sensation all the same. We’ve all felt that menace in the air and by leaving it general, it works for whatever causes that feeling in your bones.

204. New Star Song

Alex Russell Beautiful Rat Sunset , , , , , ,

During a train delay in Redding, Washington, the narrator in “New Star Song” takes in local culture.

Track: “New Star Song”
Album: Beautiful Rat Sunset (1994)

If you have thirty-five hours, you can get from Los Angeles to Seattle on the Coast Starlight passenger train. If you do this, you’ll make 28 stops and spend some time in Redding, California. You’ll wait in the same place that John Darnielle waited decades ago on a similar trip for a likely much different purpose.

It’s uncharacteristic that John Darnielle offered up as much as he did about “New Star Song,” but in 1998 he mentioned that it’s slightly autobiographical. “Slightly” is doing a lot of work there, but he did wait in Redding and watch four movies, seemingly waiting for his evening train. The similarities between the narrator and songwriter end there, but it’s telling that Beautiful Rat Sunset imagines a character waiting there through lightning storms, thinking about “things that I thought that I’d soon be forgetting.”

The strumming on “New Star Song” is angry, even for an early 90s Mountain Goats song. It opens with a clang and doubles down with a handful of furious beats over John Darnielle’s wailing “I thought about how cold you must be!” It lends itself to live performance, as many of the angry-without-being-violent ones do from this era, and as such has been played dozens of times over the years. Most versions stay true to the original and focus on the chorus and the delivery of those lines about someone else, far away, and how they must feel. Our narrator is in a hot, hostile place and they’re hanging pictures of someone everywhere. Typically that’s a sign that someone is lost, but it seems just as likely that this is a grand gesture that’s part of an ill-fated trip.

203. Itzcuintli-Totzli Days

Alex Russell Beautiful Rat Sunset , , , , , ,

“Itzuintli-Totzli Days” spends a sing-song (possibly) happy moment with a rabbit and a dear friend.

Track: “Itzcuintli-Totzli Days”
Album: Beautiful Rat Sunset (1994)

The Mountain Goats played “Itzcuintli-Totzli Days” at least twice in 1997. At one show, John Darnielle asked the audience to sing along with him in the spirit of the song’s intention. At the other show, John Darnielle opened the show with it and called it an “old song.”

People tape Mountain Goats shows and put them up online just like they do for so many other bands. This allows us to follow a partial history which we know is incomplete. There may be dozens of other recordings or unrecorded instances of “Itzcuintli-Totzli Days” out there, but those two sum it up perfectly. It’s a happy, bouncing song that even unfamiliar fans can sing along with by the end. “Let the big, big rabbit come out,” John Darnielle demands, and the crowd sings along.

The title comes from terms the Aztecs used for “dog” and “rabbit,” which represented specific elements of their calendar. The dog stood for death and the memory of the dead, while the rabbit stood for brighter moments of fertility and spirituality. The Mountain Goats dance between those two emotions frequently, but it’s rare that they do so gleefully. The day gets dark towards the end of “Itzcuintli-Totzli Days,” but the narrator is still thrilled to spend this time with someone. It’s more uplifting than we’ve come to expect, especially on an album that ends with the chilling “Resonant Bell World.” Your best bet is to sing along and beat back the darkness with a smile as you stave off the coming bad times, especially while you’ve got someone to hold your hand.

202. Song for Cleomenes

Alex Russell Beautiful Rat Sunset , , , , , ,

John Darnielle goes deep into history to tell the story of a very specific, very evil trick in “Song for Cleomenes.”

Track: “Song for Cleomenes”
Album: Beautiful Rat Sunset (1994)

In San Francisco in 2001, John Darnielle played his cover of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” He ended the song and the crowd shouted requests from all across the catalog. Darnielle told the crowd to keep the requests coming, as he wasn’t confident about any of the remaining songs on his set list.

He played nine more songs, most of them safe picks that you might still hear at a show today. He started that list, however, with the ultra rare “Song for Cleomenes.” I can’t find any other recordings of it, though it seems he’s played it other times. This rendition is only vaguely like the studio version on Beautiful Rat Sunset, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the same driving, terrifying guitar, punctuated by screams as the crowd learns the story of Gaius Verres.

The song tells you all you need to know: Gaius Verres was a horrible criminal who abused his civic power for his own gain. Cicero destroyed him in court and he had to leave town, largely on the testimony of the boat-burning trickery in the song.

People seem to delight in finding inaccuracies in the historical songs, but that seems to miss the point. The live version is slightly clearer than the studio version about what happens in the end and editorializes more about Cicero’s prose, but the differences don’t matter. It’s about the joy John Darnielle clearly finds in telling a story that most people won’t know, but ultimately relating it. Two characters, you and the narrator, end up on a beach watching boats on fire. It’s surprising to find yourself in the song, and it makes you wonder what you were doing in 73 BC.

201. Design Your Own Container Garden

Alex Russell See America Right , , , , , , , , ,

One half of the Alpha Couple reflects on different, if not happier times, in “Design Your Own Container Garden.”

Track: “Design Your Own Container Garden”
Album: See America Right (2002)

A container garden is any garden in a pot or a container. It’s a way to describe anywhere a plant could be grown other than the ground. It’s a stretch, but the phrase “Design Your Own Container Garden” might refer to the Alpha Couple, who have uprooted themselves from the west coast and relocated to their miserable future in Florida. It might also just be a phrase John Darnielle saw in a catalog, thus a similar play on “See America Right,” the title of the single the song exists on.

The narrator drives out to a specific intersection in Los Angeles. As of this writing, it features a fried chicken chain restaurant, a check cashing place, and a storage center. The details don’t matter, but the specificity helps us picture that this corner matters. We have those in our lives, too. This member of the Alpha Couple doesn’t care about LA, they care about what happened when they were in this spot.

They mention “old friends, old friends” and later call them “here ghosts, old ghosts.” You can’t go home again, John Darnielle tells us again and again, but you can wander around where home used to be and feel the feelings that are left behind. “Design Your Own Container Garden” is filled with death imagery, as the narrator talks about feeling like a buzzard and walking through wreckage. It’s the “space we left behind” to this character, and it’s clearly not something they view positively now. It makes sense to be a b-side because it doesn’t fit tonally with Tallahassee, but it’s also interesting to wonder when in the timeline we are. Is this after everything, or does this character already feel sad even though they don’t know the worst of what’s to come?

200. The Monkey Song

Alex Russell Philyra, Protein Source of the Future...Now! , , , , ,

Does a song about a monkey in the basement hold greater meaning or is this really just “The Monkey Song?”

Track: “The Monkey Song”
Album: Philyra (1994) and Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

“The Monkey Song” is not a traditional Mountain Goats song. It’s impossible to sing without a smile, given the absurd chorus about a monkey in the basement. “How did the monkey get there” and “where did the monkey come from” sound like lyrics from a children’s song. When played live, people have a good time and laugh along with John Darnielle. He sometimes even offers a mocking grand statement about the song to drive home the contrast with how silly it is.

There’s nothing wrong with a silly song. You will definitely wonder what this monkey is supposed to represent and why it’s in the basement, but you’ll just as quickly decide that you shouldn’t think so hard about a song called “The Monkey Song.” Given its placement on Philyra with a song about Portuguese water dogs, the urge to dismiss greater meaning is strong. But then, the other two songs on the album are serious, intense meditations on love and struggle. The other releases in 1994 tackle dark topics. What’s it all mean?

I’d like to say that “The Monkey Song” is the key to all of it. I’d like to suggest that it’s one of the songs that seems like it has a deeper meaning to unlock and in doing so, you gain a greater understanding of John Darnielle and yourself. More likely, it’s a silly song with a chorus that crowds can pick up on quickly. John Darnielle once told a story about playing in Europe and hearing a voice in the crowd yell something like “play monkey song!” in heavily accented English and how shocking it was. It’s not that there isn’t anything to understand here, it’s just that it may not always be the most important point.

199. Night of the Mules

Alex Russell Chile de Árbol, Protein Source of the Future...Now! , , , , , , ,

Vague religious references and a group of foreboding animals populate “Night of the Mules.”

Track: “Night of the Mules”
Album: Chile de Árbol (1993) and Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

Chile de Árbol is a strange collection. One song is about the end of the world and the Easter Bunny, another is about Billy the Kid, and the other three are challenging to approach even at a basic level. “Night of the Mules” seems to be about generalized menace, with only the title to suggest where the source of said menace lies.

A few years ago John Darnielle opened a concert with “Night of the Mules.” He’s said recently that he likes to open shows with old or rare songs so few people in the crowd will know the first one. It’s a powerful effect, and it usually quiets the crowd as people try to figure out what they’re listening to or if they’ve heard it before. “Night of the Mules” doesn’t need much updating to fit in with a modern Mountain Goats show. It’s all fierce guitar and sneers, so it’s a perfect wake-the-crowd-up jam to hear up top.

The only commentary I can find is one quote where John Darnielle says the song is about an ending that will come for everyone. Kyle Barbour, author of The Annotated Mountain Goats, suggests that it’s a Biblical song because of the presence of kings, holly, and mistletoe, but he also hears “praying” in the second verse where I hear “braying.” That’s as good of an answer as anything I can come up with, but I’m more comfortable calling this a generalized view of an end times. The religious reading is backed up by the opening sample from Genesis about Abraham’s attempt to save the city of Sodom if ten good men exist there, but mules coming to destroy everything seems more like a John Darnielle original idea to me.

198. Seed Song

Alex Russell Protein Source of the Future...Now!, Yam, the King of Crops , , , , , , , ,

“Seed Song” pivots in the middle to tell the beginning and end of a story about life.

Track: “Seed Song”
Album: Yam, the King of Crops (1994) and Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

The first two verses of “Seed Song” follow a familiar construction for the Mountain Goats. It starts with a narrator telling us that it has not rained in a year, but someone still wants to sell the character seeds. A different character in the following verse insists that these people buy seeds from a catalog, but it still refuses to rain. “We sent him away,” the narrator repeats four times, to really drive the point home.

John Darnielle loves using repetition and emphasis. In “Seed Song,” these devices work well with the hypnotic tune and create a sense of relentlessness in the listener. The idea is straightforward (it is not raining, no one has use for seeds) but the implication is much bigger than that. We are made to understand that these people are in trouble, immediately, and it is repeated to the point that it is unmissable. “Seed Song” opens Yam, the King of Crops, and the first two verses are a dark way to start an album. In typical Mountain Goats fashion, things must get worse.

The construction of the third verse is similar, but the audience changes. The narrator addresses us directly with “And I know you’re waiting // for the ironic ending.” This plays with expectations, because at this point you must wonder what will happen to these people. The reality is that most stories end this way, as the narrator tells us “I know you’re waiting // for the rain to come by // so am I.” The repetition of “so am I” four times again follows the previous verse’s construction, but without the hope of a happier ending.

197. Going to Jamaica

Alex Russell Ghana, Taking the Dative , , , , , , , ,

Communication is key, and the poor substitute of gifts of flowers proves that in “Going to Jamaica.”

Track: “Going to Jamaica”
Album: Taking the Dative (1994), Ghana (1999)

“Going to Jamaica” is the survivor from Taking the Dative. Of the six songs on the album, it’s the one that sounds closest to the band’s later output. As a result, it’s the one you’re most likely to hear during the solo set in the middle of a Mountain Goats concert in this era of the band. Most versions of the song maintain what makes the original work so well, with biting punctuation at the end of each verse and slow, longing guitar.

There is debate about if this song involves the Alpha Couple, but the presence of an Alpha song directly after it on Taking the Dative (“Alpha Gelida”) seems to suggest otherwise. The distinction isn’t all that important, as “Going to Jamaica” hits all of the Alpha themes: desperation, lack of communication, unclear solutions to unclear problems. These two aren’t having the real conversation they need to have and they might still be early enough in that they know that, but it won’t change.

In both verses, the character we don’t hear from asks the narrator when they can leave. The narrator originally says “I’m not at liberty to say,” but changes to “Well, it’s any day now” by the end of the song. Neither of these feel honest, and both are followed by the same next step. As a distraction, the narrator pulls flowers out of the ground or “from the hands of children” for their partner. The same move twice gives the impression that the narrator is winging this and isn’t doing a good job. The camera pans away before the explosion, but we get a good sense of where this story is headed.

196. Wrong!

Alex Russell Ghana, Taking the Dative , , , , , , , ,

The curiously vague, sleepy “Wrong!” describes a familiar feeling without spoiling the universality with details.

Track: “Wrong!”
Album: Taking the Dative (1994), Ghana (1999)

There are very few Mountain Goats songs with an exclamation point in the title. Given what John Darnielle can accomplish in a song with a mundane title, “Wrong!” seems ripe for yelling and screaming. The result is surprising, with a lazy beat and the unmistakable sound of the early keyboard songs. This isn’t an angry anthem, it’s a quiet song sung under one’s breath.

John Darnielle says his angriest songs aren’t the screamers, they’re the ones that one character delivers to another in a hushed, furious tone. The classic example is the divorce story “Waving at You,” but “Wrong!” seems like it’s part of that tradition. It’s short enough to quote entirely, but you really just need the first verse: “You know // you know // you see // what’s going on with me // but you don’t do anything // you don’t do anything // you don’t do anything.” This character is at the end of a rope with this relationship and blames their partner even for their own problems.

The lyrics are simple and the music is minimal, which allows “Wrong!” to occupy any space needed for your situation. This could be a married couple headed towards divorce or it could be friends that don’t satisfy the needs they once did. This could be a new couple having their first fight. There aren’t any concrete details, so it’s anything. It’s certainly more universal than some of the more specific images in other songs, which is somewhat surprising for John Darnielle. There are a few songs like this out there that fill in the cracks when songs about a couple in Florida whose lives are crumbling don’t exactly match your current struggle.