All Hail West Texas

263. The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton

Alex Russell All Hail West Texas , , , , , , ,

Jeff and Cyrus stand in for all the downtrodden in “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton.”

Track: “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2002)

“The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton” is arresting, the first time you hear it. It’s a story song where you will learn about Jeff and Cyrus, who go through turmoil as teenagers because the adults in their lives don’t understand what they’re trying to do. These two want to create something that reflects how they feel about the world. “When you punish a person for dreaming their dream // don’t expect them to thank or forgive you,” says John Darnielle, and he sums up the universal response of people who the world tries to correct. Round pegs won’t go in square holes, and forcing them isn’t going to help.

It’s become one of the band’s most popular songs. The Mountain Goats wiki lists more than 200 live performances and that list is no doubt incomplete. With rare exceptions, most shows end with “No Children,” “This Year,” or “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton.” They’re the scream-along songs that unite a crowd, which is great energy to put out into the world and to bring an audience together. If you’ve never seen the band live, you can only hope they end on one of those.

The song is self explanatory, but it’s worth spending a moment on the “hail Satan” part. The ending devolves into John Darnielle (and the crowd) yelling versions of “hail Satan.” Satan feels like a simple concept, but it isn’t, and this song asks you to latch onto this as an idea of righteous rebellion rather than a symbol for pain and destruction. John Darnielle has talked about this a lot over the years and I encourage you to go to the source, but it’s worth noting this isn’t direct praise of darkness. It’s a light that comes from standing in your own truth.

261. Waco

Alex Russell All Hail West Texas , , , , , ,

Two doomed lovers talk about their circumstances in grandiose terms in “Waco.”

Track: “Waco”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2013 reissue)

Counting the alternate version of “Jenny,” the reissue of All Hail West Texas in 2013 had seven songs that weren’t on the first release. One is safe to assume that “Waco” was the closest to making it originally, as it’s the only one that seems to have been played live. In the liner notes of the reissue, John Darnielle says he liked the song but didn’t like the second take, so this demo version is all you get. That explains why it ends so abruptly and why something this complete isn’t on the album.

“Waco” would fit right in on All Hail West Texas. The title explains the first verse, as this is about the Branch Davidians who met their end during the raid in Waco, Texas in 1993. If you’re an American of a certain age, the word “Waco” isn’t something you connect to anything else other than that event. It’s a disaster that is grand in scope, and it’s not surprising to hear a Mountain Goats narrator connect their crumbling relationship to a tremendous event.

The parallels between the verses are purposeful. The first verse seems to be actually the Branch Davidians, speaking figuratively about the dead rising and Jesus offering the only salvation people are interested in. The second verse borrows the zombie language that John Darnielle typically reserves for miserable relationships, but then inserts the same chorus to show how much the two can resemble each other. These two talk about coming to Waco to “get away from our friends” and to “relish the short time left.” They aren’t going to die in fiery disaster in a compound, but they’ve got bad things coming to them and they feel just as doomed.

249. Blues in Dallas

Alex Russell All Hail West Texas , , , , , , ,

Leave it to a Mountain Goats character to think about themselves at Dealey Plaza in “Blues in Dallas.”

Track: “Blues in Dallas”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2002)

There is an entire episode of the podcast I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats about each song on All Hail West Texas. The episode for “Blues in Dallas” opens with an extended discussion of the origin of spaghetti and spends a lot of time discussing translation and interpretation. In both his live show banter and his podcast appearances, John Darnielle happily wanders all over the place and you have to accept that as part of the experience. It’s a fascinating conversation, albeit one that doesn’t spend much time on “Blues in Dallas.”

Towards the end of the discussion, John Darnielle laughs at the convoluted path their conversation took and as acknowledgement to the supposed premise, he explains “Blues in Dallas” as a song about solitude and a narrator spending time in a dark place as they attempt to connect it to their own experience. “I am far from where we live,” they say, “and I have not learned how to forgive.” Dealey Plaza, the site of the lyrics, is where John F. Kennedy was killed, and I can relate to the narrator’s experience. If you’ve been there, but aren’t from there, the darkness feels both present and distant.

It’s also a Casio song. There’s been a lot said over the years about the keyboard songs, but this one benefits more than most as the sleepy melody behind the keys creates a wandering effect. John Darnielle says the difference between the guitar and the keyboard in this era is that he can punch the guitar and get more intense impact out of it, but the keyboard is the keyboard. You get a preset tone and you get some simple tones. That’s limiting, but it fits thematically with this narrator’s desire to focus and to be listened to as they contemplate.

189. Tape Travel is Lonely

Alex Russell All Hail West Texas , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle explores the dark side of ignoring your problems in “Tape Travel is Lonely.”

Track: “Tape Travel is Lonely”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2013 reissue)

There are a few things to unpack here before we even tackle the song itself. The title of “Tape Travel is Lonely” is a reference to the 2001 John Vanderslice album Time Travel is Lonely. That album is heartbreaking, especially during the title track as Vanderslice’s fictional brother tells the story of his descent into madness in Antarctica.

“Tape Travel is Lonely” is one of the previously unreleased tracks that made it onto the 2013 reissue of All Hail West Texas, and John Darnielle reveals in the liner notes that this one was cut because it ended abruptly while he was recording and he never went back to it. He doesn’t outright say it should have made the album, but he suggests it. It’s possible that the title stems from the process of digging back through old material and picturing who you were when you created the originals. Darnielle says this one didn’t have a title, so you can picture him listening to this song and appreciating the feeling his producer and collaborator Vanderslice imagined for his character in Antarctica.

The song itself is a lot of scene setting, even for the Mountain Goats. We see a “party” that’s all homegrown vegetables and sweet wine on the porch. In most songs, these would be idyllic images and we’d picture a nice night spent with friends in the country. Darnielle hammers the guitar and holds on the last word in lyrics like “the tensions build // air currents throb” to let us know this is not that kind of scene. It’s a fiercer version of “Fault Lines,” in a way, as the narrator’s building anxiety and growing drunkenness peak with a plea for the mosquitoes to suck the remaining blood from his body.

142. Answering the Phone

Alex Russell All Hail West Texas , , , , , , , ,

 

 

The outtake “Answering the Phone” deserves a spot among the best concert singalong songs of the Mountain Goats.

Track: “Answering the Phone”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2013 reissue)

Arguably the best of the new tracks on the 2013 reissue of All Hail West Texas, “Answering the Phone” demands your attention. All the new tracks work, but you can understand why the others missed the original cut. They’re mostly complex and require multiple listens to sink into your brain.

This is decidedly untrue for “Answering the Phone.” The entire thing is surface level, right down to the title that John Darnielle says comes from being interrupted by phone calls during previous takes. Being surface level isn’t a bad thing. You immediately, from the first listen, will latch on to phrases like “you came here for comfort, you came to the wrong place” and the chorus of “I think something’s wrong with me.”

John Darnielle’s best narrators are missing small-to-large pieces of themselves. Depending on the album, they show varied levels of understanding towards their predicaments. This one knows where they stand in the world and uses three verses to guess as to the reasoning behind their state of mind. Maybe it’s their childhood of undernourishment or bad upbringing or maybe it’s their teenage years of angry music or maybe it’s their current state of drunkenness and repeated mistakes. It’s about the journey, as they say, and this narrator retraces their steps to no avail.

You can almost hear people in some dark bar that’s church-like in its reverence for bands like this as they scream “I think something’s wrong with me!” while John Darnielle shakes his fist from the stage. It never happened, or at least we don’t know about it, because this song didn’t make the original All Hail West Texas and never lived in the live rotation. The sneer over the third verse here is all-time good and it’s a real shame this remained an outtake.

141. Indonesia

Alex Russell All Hail West Texas , , , , , ,

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6_TTFcZTt4

Two people barrel through seasons and hope for the best that they know isn’t going to happen in “Indonesia.”

Track: “Indonesia”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2013 reissue)

According to the liner notes of the 2013 reissue of All Hail West Texas, John Darnielle wrote “Indonesia” in one night. He says it didn’t make the album because it isn’t doesn’t fit with the rest of the story. All Hail is about “seven people, two houses, a motorcycle, and a locked treatment facility for adolescent boys” per its cover, so this is about anyone else in the world that doesn’t occupy that space.

John sings much of “Indonesia” in a low, steady tone, which gives the sense that he’s relaying facts rather than editorializing. Lines like “the summer came in carrying spring in its mouth” seem plucked out of poetry even with that delivery, but they exist here just to carry time forward. The first verse sets up that summer is typically a time of great turmoil for these two characters. John Darnielle says that this song fits more with his writing style for Tallahassee. The Alpha Couple would recognize “this is the time when all our plans and schemes melt down into listless anarchy” all too well.

The second-and-final verse explores some familiar territory for the Mountain Goats. John Darnielle talks about plants as a metaphor for loneliness, weather as an omen, and hunger as a representation for something evil. These are common lyrical elements across the catalog, and it makes one wonder why this song doesn’t hold higher regard.

The chorus is simply “Indonesia // Indonesia.” In such a powerfully wrought song full of lyrics, it’s interesting that John Darnielle left the chorus at one word. It allows you to fill the space of those two words with whatever emotions you’d like. So many Mountain Goats songs are about the belief that changing your location could change your life, but these two are just holding onto dreams.

126. Hardpan Song

Alex Russell All Hail West Texas , , , , , , , ,

In “Hardpan Song,” a narrator considers how terrible weather is relatable when you’re feeling down and out.

Track: “Hardpan Song”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2013 reissue)

Merge Records reissued All Hail West Texas in 2013 with seven additional tracks. The original 2002 release is a turning point for John Darnielle, and you’ll find lots of devotees who call it the best album he’s released. It has several iconic songs and straddles all the moods of a great Mountain Goats album from deep and personal depression to boundless and triumphant love. The seven additional tracks on the 2013 release include an alternate take of “Jenny” and some really interesting oddities, with the main connective tissue being that they all sound like they would have made sense on All Hail West Texas from the start.

“Hardpan Song” opens with a sample from the radio and sounds like so many songs from the first decade of the Mountain Goats. In the liner notes of the reissue John Darnielle says as much and says that it doesn’t really feel right for the album. It’s definitely classic Darnielle, with the incongruous jazz and then a low, quiet musing about plant growth and how it’s just like his own sad existence.

Hardpan is soil that won’t keep water and thus won’t grow anything. The narrator thinks about hardpan and how ruined soil seems like it’s ruined forever, but then it rains and rains sometimes. They snarl “it shows no signs of stopping” and it’s clear that the miserable conditions evoke something else. It’s too brief for us to know exactly what situation is at play here, but the tense guitar and “the rain comes // it floods the town // and kills everybody in it” tell us that it’s not a great day in Texas. “Hardpan Song” is essentially a musing on “when it rains it pours,” but with typical Mountain Goats flourish.

107. Fall of the Star High School Running Back

Alex Russell All Hail West Texas , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle laments the reality of drug laws in “Fall of the Star High School Running Back.”

Track: “Fall of the Star High School Running Back”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2002)

All Hail West Texas is about specific people. They aren’t all real, but they are specific in the sense that they have names and personalities. John Darnielle’s early work features characters that speak in first person and often talk about the same themes (love, desperation, longing, and the like) so the first album with a full cast is a big departure.

Jenny from “Jenny” shows up in other songs and Jeff and Cyrus from “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton” live again every time the band closes a live show. William Staniforth Donahue is a different sort of character, but still specific. His name changes in live shows, but he’s always the same person. He always plays football well and he always goes to jail. He lives a short life in the two-minute song.

John Darnielle says the song is about mandatory sentencing. The character is based on a person who did time in a Dutch prison for drug possession, ostensibly with the intent to distribute. The real guy was another young person who probably didn’t fit the intent of a mandatory 10+ year sentence for peddling hard drugs.

He refers to the song as “a protest song” which makes sense. It’s also the story of a troubled person who chooses temporary happiness at the risk of all else. That’s a very familiar idea. More of Donahue’s character comes out in the line “people you used to look down on” about the drug dealers he hangs with after he loses his football career. He changes his perspective about the lower social strata, which would be the start of something if it weren’t connected with the end of everything else.

042. Color in Your Cheeks

Alex Russell All Hail West Texas , , , , , , ,

“Color in Your Cheeks” examines that quiet moment where everyone in the room knows they aren’t supposed to say anything.

Track: “Color in Your Cheeks”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2002)

All Hail West Texas got a re-issue recently, so hopefully the people who love the “polished” stuff are now getting a chance to hear the “low-fi” stuff. Even though it’s the last of the boombox albums, All Hail West Texas has enough cred that it’s tough to imagine any Goats fan hasn’t heard it. It’s a delightfully quiet album, with songs like “Pink and Blue” and “Distant Stations” representing the peak of “difficult subject matter/quiet recording” mastery.

“Color in Your Cheeks” is a great starter song for the album. It’s the third track, but the opener is the fiery, furious “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton” and the second track “Fall of the Star High School Running Back” is a wonderful parable, but not necessarily the greatest indicator of what’s going on in All Hail. “Color in Your Cheeks” hammers home the idea of being lonely in a crowd. Each verse represents a different person coming to a home-away-from-home in the hopes that they’ll be able to get some solace.

Later in the album you have “The Mess Inside” and “Riches and Wonders” and you know you’re in a real Goats album. You’re dealing with two people who are in love but having a really, really damn hard time of it. “Color in Your Cheeks” is somewhat of a rare message for the band. Even though there are seven specific places listed (eight if you count “across the street”), it’s not about specifics at all. When they play the song live, John Darnielle sometimes randomizes the list or includes other locales. Soviet Georgia or no, when you’ve come from a long way, a drink and some people to be quiet with can be all the gift you need.

015. Riches and Wonders

Alex Russell All Hail West Texas , , , , , , ,

 

“Riches and Wonders” sounds like a love song at first, but hides darker truths about our fears of intimacy.

Track: “Riches and Wonders”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2002)

All Hail West Texas just might be the quintessential Mountain Goats album. It’s the bridge between the original lo-fi and the evolution of John Darnielle as a lyricist. Songs like “The Mess Inside” and “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton” define the band to this day, over a decade after their original release. There’s more fire and intensity on other tracks, but “Riches and Wonders” hits the desperate, sad, longing notes harder than it originally appears to, allowing it to burrow in upon multiples listens.

The strumming tells you the general feeling, but it’s the voice crack over “I want to go home // but I am home” that will hit you like a hammer. From the opening “our love gorges on the alcohol we feed it” you know you’re dealing with people who haven’t fully adjusted to each other. Love is often expressed through song as difficult to get right, but capable of defeating all troubles. That’s not the case, and these two definitely know that.

Some moments, like “we stay up all night” and “we are strong, we are faithful” almost suggest a passion distinct enough to conquer the difficulties of the cast of All Hail West Texas. The reality shines through in the most telling lyrics: “you find shelter somewhere in me // I find great comfort in you.” That sounds nice, but what they’re really saying is that they don’t know what part of them could provide safe emotional harbor to anyone (see “Autoclave” for a much more direct version of this feeling) and they’re finding comfort, not love. These two are “making it work” but they have no delusions about that being what love is supposed to be like.