bible

481. Genesis 30:3

Alex Russell The Life of the World to Come , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Genesis 30:3” takes a pragmatic scene and finds the beauty in it.

Track: “Genesis 30:3”
Album: The Life of the World to Come (2009)

Obviously they are very different, but “Genesis 30:3” always calls to mind “Pink and Blue” for me. That song is about child abandonment and the pain of a parent who we never hear from. Maybe their circumstances are grim and maybe there’s more going on, but we are presented a story and asked to hear it before we think about what got us to that moment. “Genesis 30:3” does that, too.

The verse Genesis 30:3 is about Blihah, a slave that Rachel ordered to sleep with Jacob to produce children when Rachel could not. John Darnielle told a lengthy story in Amsterdam you should read all of to consider the politics of this moment, but the point here is the story itself. Just like in “Pink and Blue,” there is something else happening, but the birth itself is beautiful when considered from Rachel’s perspective. She cannot do what she must do, so she must do something else. We hear her resigned, but also ready for the good moments she can draw from this.

When The Life of the World to Come came out in 2009, some fans wrote it off on basis of the source material. If you’re in that camp, “Genesis 30:3” is probably the toughest one to swallow. I find it beautiful, especially given the difficulty of framing a story like this as a moment of beauty. It’s easy to take the surface level grim realities of the day and move on, but sit with the lingering piano and the images, especially if you generally don’t do that.

480. Matthew 11:14-19

Alex Russell the life of the world in flux , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Matthew 11:14-19” compares the reluctance of a crowd to believe in a savior with a more direct foe.

Track: “Matthew 11:14-19”
Album: The Life of the World in Flux (2009)

There are, as far as I know, only two versions of “Matthew 11:14-19.” There’s the one on The Life of the World in Flux and there’s this live version that John Darnielle opened a solo performance with in New York a few months ago as of this writing. The live version is nearly identical, with the only change being the number of degrees the character turns around. It’s the opening song for that live show, which Darnielle has said before he reserves for songs the audience doesn’t know or hasn’t heard often. It’s a fitting spot for it. He describes it at that show as a song that “maybe two people have ever heard” and says that he picked it specifically as a shocking choice for a solo show, which he does because from his early days performing solo he learned that people usually don’t listen to the first one unless you blow them away.

The verses in the title describe a generation that does not believe that Jesus was the chosen one and they do not believe his messengers. “It takes a crowd to drown a witch,” the song tells us, and the verses similarly show crowds that combine to form a full generation of nonbelievers.

The rest is a little more esoteric. The Claude Rains mention and the bandages are references to The Invisible Man, but the bleeding eyes are something else. Rains played a literally invisible man in that movie, but here we have more of a standard Darnielle character as a monster that’s a stand-in for general opposition.

479. Enoch 18:14

Alex Russell the life of the world in flux, The Life of the World to Come , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

There are two source materials for “Enoch 18:14,” but it seems to be more about getting lost in general than either one.

Track: “Enoch 18:14”
Album: The Life of the World to Come (2009) and The Life of the World in Flux (2009)

The Book of Enoch is not part of the biblical canon, though it is supposedly written by Enoch, a man who possibly entered heaven alive and certainly, in the text of the Book of Genesis, lived among other characters you might know. We lack the space and I lack the expertise to get into the story of the Apocrypha, but it is unsurprising and fantastic that John Darnielle included what he calls “a bonus track” from the Bible on this album.

The Book of Enoch is apocalyptic, but it’s specifically about the possibility of evil “watcher” angels. The text of the song “Enoch 18:14” also borrows direct text from the video game Odin Sphere, a role-playing game published by Atlus, and Darnielle has told the story about using these lines at a few live shows. I watched him explain this in person once, in great detail, but even there it felt more important that it was important to him than the source material’s actual importance. It feels a little like the Ozzy songs, in that way, where you don’t need to know anything about Odin Sphere, or Enoch, really, you just need to know that it matters to the band. The comparison between this part of Odin Sphere and Enoch is all about the depth of emotion and the desire to embrace darkness. The song comes from there, but it also comes from the ability to get so deeply lost in other worlds when running from that same desire.

478. Deuteronomy 2:10

Alex Russell the life of the world in flux, The Life of the World to Come , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We hear from three narrators who are gone in “Deuteronomy 2:10,” but we are reminded there are more.

Track: “Deuteronomy 2:10”
Album: The Life of the World to Come (2009) and The Life of the World in Flux (2009)

When confronting all of the songs on The Life of the World to Come, I try to remember how they sounded in 2009. “Deuteronomy 2:10” is a crushing, impossible song now. I suppose it was then, too, but I don’t remember it hitting me as hard at the time. There are other songs on the album that are more directly about human loss, pain, and memory, and I think it’s only natural that those feel more immediate and more memorable to us.

“Deuteronomy 2:10” is the story of three animals who are now extinct. It’s sung from their perspective, as we hear the last tiger of its kind accept that it will die in captivity, a flightless bird smell the burning of timber that signals the end of a forest, and a toad ribbit by itself in moonlight. Extinction as a concept is huge to confront, almost impossibly big to imagine. There are so many songs about death and loss that it is surprising, somewhat, to find a deeper kind of end that asks even more of you, emotionally.

The verse in Deuteronomy is a simple one, a brief reference to a people, the Emites, who no longer live in a place. It is about a kind of extinction, but the final part of the verse says the Emites were “as tall as the Anakites.” The Anakites were supposedly giants and were the ancestors to Goliath, who David slew. What’s interesting is that even a verse about an extinct people briefly references yet another group that’s gone, reminding us of the multitudes more beyond these three narrators.

477. Matthew 25:21

Alex Russell the life of the world in flux, The Life of the World to Come , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The verse offers hope where the lyrics do not in “Matthew 25:21.”

Track: “Matthew 25:21”
Album: The Life of the World to Come (2009) and The Life of the World in Flux (2009)

Early in his career, John Darnielle wrote few songs about himself. That didn’t stop people from assuming he was the narrator in every song, but most of those characters were fictional. The narrator in “Matthew 25:21” is John Darnielle, visiting his mother-in-law as she deals, directly in the third verse, with treatment for cancer. Darnielle has said that he had to cancel a show to make the trip he describes in the lyrics and the song came out of the feelings that followed the events as described. It is literal, but it does not suffer for being so. I still find it difficult to listen to, even after hearing it likely hundreds of times.

The title comes from a verse, as does every song on this album, which describes a servant left with a sum of money over a long period of time. The servant doubles the money and is rewarded for diligence, which we can extrapolate into a statement about faith and works. This is contrasted with another servant who does not work and thus does not further their master’s goals. There are a few lessons here, but the one I take is that it is better to work than to be idle, but also that this work will be rewarded. The song is a crushing tale of loss told during and after the events, but the title holds a hope that something that comes next will mitigate how you feel right now. It’s a nice thought, for the servant, but the song reminds us to keep that in mind as we find no respite for ourselves.

476. Romans 10:9

Alex Russell the life of the world in flux, The Life of the World to Come , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The contrasts of the verses and the chorus are important in “Romans 10:9.”

Track: “Romans 10:9”
Album: The Life of the World to Come (2009) and The Life of the World in Flux (2009)

It’s not unique to the Mountain Goats, but people seem to take the opposite intention from songs sometimes. It’s one thing not to “get” a song, I think just about all of them are open to some form of interpretation and it’s not fair to tell anyone they are “wrong” about any song. That said, Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” is not the full-on patriotic tune everyone misunderstands it as and people do the same thing with Mountain Goats songs.

One such song is “Romans 10:9,” with a prayer for a chorus, bright vocals, and a a jaunty tune. Darnielle’s mentioned this directly before and it’s somewhat expected given it’s on The Life of the World to Come. But just like every song on Beat the Champ is about wrestling and also something else, the same thing applies here. You’ll get something out of it as a song about faith, but it’s also about the limitations of faith.

The narrator says they can’t sleep. They say they are terrified to truly take in their surroundings. They say they’ll go to the pharmacy, but they won’t take the drugs. I love the phrasing of that part, “won’t take the medication, but it’s good to have around” and it pairs nicely with the hopeful, but not certain, prayer of “a kind and loving God won’t let my small ship run aground.” Faith might aid you, but you have to do some of this work yourself.

475. Psalms 40:2

Alex Russell the life of the world in flux, The Life of the World to Come , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The characters in “Psalms 40:2” may be low right now, but they know that’s where you start your climb.

Track: “Psalms 40:2”
Album: The Life of the World to Come (2009) and The Life of the World in Flux (2009)

“Psalms 40:2” builds as it goes. John Darnielle’s voice vibrates over the very first line and he bares his teeth over even simple turns of phrase like “checked into a Red Roof Inn.” He almost speaks, more than sings, some of the lines in the opening verses, but you can feel the tension through words like “shrapnel.” It escalates so slightly, line by line, until the explosion at the end with the exultation that “he has raised me from the pit and he will set me high.”

The delivery, and the drums, especially, tell you this is getting worse and worse. It’s directly about some people, young people, who are driving around and destroying things. They feel bad, but not too bad, and that’s something most of us can relate to at that point in our lives. Darnielle has said before it’s about a specific chapel in Missouri. I haven’t been there and you probably haven’t either, but you’ve been to the one in your mind. When you’re young you feel extreme. You feel like everything matters, and it kinda does.

The verse is about that ending line, but there’s a lot going on there. Darnielle once gave an interview where he mentioned that this one is about an idea of closeness to God through opposition. It is when you are at your lowest — when you’re in that pit — that you can be raised the highest. It doesn’t feel that way in the moment, but it’s a nice thing to keep in mind if you can.

129. Genesis 19:1-2

Alex Russell Devil in the Shortwave , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

A dramatic showdown with angels, a mob, and a desperate person becomes a loud 95 seconds in “Genesis 19:1-2.”

Track: “Genesis 19:1-2”
Album: Devil in the Shortwave (2002)

Not much sounds like “Genesis 19:1-2” in the catalog. Darnielle yells the entire song like he’s competing with the guitar and has no control over how loud either of them sounds. It’s intense and it’s frantic but above everything else it’s just plain damn loud. It calls to mind songs like “Store” that are amazing experiences by themselves but don’t fit into a night where John Darnielle has to protect his voice and sing 25 other songs.

Devil in the Shortwave is a weird collection of five songs. There’s a cover and the very quiet “Yoga,” but the other three are all short explosions. “Crows” and “Commandante” have furious vocals, but the guitar supports those songs. On “Genesis 19:1-2” it drowns the vocals and makes the song almost scary. It’s only a minute and a half, but you can’t escape the sense that something really serious and bad is happening here.

The title comes from the moment just before God destroys Sodom. Lot invites two angels into his home and tries to pacify an angry mob. He asks them to stand down and to respect the angels, but the mob will not be soothed. Then they are all killed and Lot leaves with his wife, who is punished for a separate sin. The song includes a line directly from the Bible (“The two angels came to Sodom in the evening”) but otherwise just offers possible clues. The cast of characters in the first verse may be the mob, set apart by specifics like “the girl who’d been haunting your dreams all your life.” By the second verse, Lot is leaving and his wife has her things with her. Like many good Mountain Goats songs, we know this isn’t going to end well, even if no one else does.

111. Proverbs 6:27

Alex Russell The Life of the World to Come , , , , , , , , ,

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSmHR-GWI1w

“Proverbs 6:27” applies a verse about adultery to the power of memory and how we deal with those we’ve lost.

Track: “Proverbs 6:27”
Album: The Life of the World to Come (2009)

The title verse is simple: “Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” It’s evocative and clear. The proverb means you will be burned if you play with fire, but it also means that everyone will know it. Your clothes are burned, but not destroyed. It seems like the suggestion is that you aren’t consumed immediately by fire, but rather that people see your singed clothes and know what happened.

The preceding verses in the Bible explain the context of adultery, but the Goats song allows for wider interpretation. The character waits in an old home and does mundane tasks to pass the time and ignore the nagging thought of someone long gone. It’s another version of the emotions in “Half Dead,” though less directly about a breakup. In “Proverbs 6:27” our hero wears their heart on their sleeve, but it could be a death instead of a temporary loss and it could be a friend instead of a lover. Whatever the characters, you can insert yourself and imagine the time spent “as day gives way to day gives way to day gives way to day.”

The chorus is simple like the verse, but it’s prime John Darnielle. “I treat each crushing moment like a gift” shows that the character is wallowing in difficult head space across Betamax tapes and old memories, but “and wait for the fog to lift” means that they expect this to have an end. You can be scarred by loss, the Mountain Goats remind you, but you’re gonna get out of that house eventually and it’ll pass. It isn’t purely hopeful, but the conclusion suggests that since singed clothes won’t kill you, the fire is fine.

079. 1 John 4:16

Alex Russell The Life of the World to Come , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ws6r6VqRV4

The Bible verse and the Mountain Goats song “1 John 4:16” talk about sources of love, but with very different results.

Track: “1 John 4:16”
Album: The Life of the World to Come (2009)

The Life of the World to Come is certainly well-loved now, but it’s impossible to forget how out of left field it felt when it came out. In most of the interviews that led up to the release John Darnielle defended his choice to write an entire album based on verses from the Bible and tried to explain what it meant to him. It’s hard to describe succinctly, but Darnielle’s description of it being more about “hard lessons” from the Bible and less about actual Christianity is a good place to start.

While the Mountain Goats had plenty of biblical history before The Life of the World to Come (as has been written about at length in this amazing article), the album at first appears to be a whole new level of dedication. It only seems that way from the track list. Aside from the title, there isn’t anything directly biblical about “1 John 4:16.” The verse is about how love comes from God and how faith and love cannot be experienced separately. The song is much darker, though it also deals with love. The narrator is trapped, first in a “holding tank” (though they do say they built it themselves) and then in just a “cell” (though they are led out of it).

The tone here, like the message on much of The Life of the World to Come, is pensive. The narrator is trapped and afraid, but is comforted somewhat by rain-inspired thoughts of a loved one. The delivery of “I know you’re thinking of me // because it’s just about to rain” is wonderfully delicate, but it’s the piano that makes the song work. Live performances have become more and more about the piano portion, and songs like “1 John 4:16” are exactly why.