Devil in the Shortwave

226. Yoga

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

Two characters debate next steps and outcomes while changing their passports in “Yoga.”

Track: “Yoga”
Album: Devil in the Shortwave (2002)

There are two things to take note of in “Yoga.” The first is obvious from the first line, when we learn that these two are doctoring passports in an attempt to escape Bombay. We know we’re in a time before 1995, likely, as Bombay became Mumbai then. We know we’re dealing with unscrupulous characters, again likely, because most aboveboard people don’t have kits to adjust passports. The second thing is revealed in the last verse, as one characters tells the other that one of them “will be all alone someday.”

It all depends on what you believe. The narrator calls the other character’s statement that there is nothing in their way a lie and calls the statement about one, but only one, of them making it out the truth. All we know about this person is that they’re adjusting a passport illicitly. Why would we take their statements after that as truth? Even zoomed out from that, why would we assume they know what’s going to happen next?

“Yoga” unfolds the more time you spend with it in that way. The narrator may be lying, the other character may be lying, neither may be lying, and they may both be wrong or right and not know yet. There are many stories like this over the catalog and John Darnielle loves to create narrators that appear to be omniscient but really only know what they believe is true. On the surface, it’s a song about two people doing what is surely just another crime on a longer list. Below that, it’s people who aren’t sure what’s real anymore and probably ran out of good ideas a long time ago.

214. Commandante

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

The bouncy, exciting “Commandante” hides dark ends with one last singalong for the road.

Track: “Commandante”
Album: Devil in the Shortwave (2002)

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of Mountain Goats songs about two anxious, furious people who feel that their situation is important, dire, and ending. Depending on what point in the timeline we meet those people, John Darnielle tells their story differently. By the early 2000s, the couple gained a name as The Alpha Couple. It is a point of debate, though clearly ridiculous debate, whether any two people who fight and hate as much as they love are The Alpha Couple or just two other people feeling the same way. There’s enough commentary from John Darnielle that we can infer that not every couple in every song is the same one, of course, and that the feelings are just universal enough that we think it’s the same folks going through the same pain.

These aren’t the famous ones, I don’t think. These are just two people who sound deceptively happy if you don’t listen to the lyrics. John Darnielle clearly has fun on “Commandante,” with the howling chorus and the scream-along-ready line of “I am never going back to Cincinnati,” which, incidentally, went over like gangbusters in Cincinnati in 2013. The studio version is fast and peaks in the right places, but live shows like that really sell it. You can hear the foot stomps from the crowd and the individual folks in the audience that put their own meaning into sailing through the night sky like a pair of bottle rockets.

These two are already at the end. Threats to drink more whiskey than a famous Irish alcoholics and vague mentions of grievances and great big secrets are really obvious signs that not all is well. But John Darnielle reminds us with the melody that the end sometimes feels fun, right before you get there.

 

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.

035. Crows

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

 

John Darnielle strains his voice in a graveyard in “Crows,” but he also asks us to consider what the scene means to us.

Track: “Crows”
Album: Devil in the Shortwave (2002)

Devil in the Shortwave clocks in at twelve minutes long. Over two-and-a-half decades and likely a thousand songs, it’s very easy to lose track of twelve minutes. “Yoga” and “Genesis 19:1-2” still get a little play live now and they’re both excellent representations of the group’s earlier style. “Dirty Old Town” is a cover and “Comandante” is one of the all-time screamers; it’ll never fall all the way out of any fan’s rotation. Any song that starts with “I’m gonna drink more whiskey than Brendan Behan!” will always have a place in a certain mood.

That leaves the fifth song: “Crows.” Our narrator visits their great-grandmother’s grave in North Carolina only to find that a construction crew is destroying the headstones to raze the site for “graduate-student housing.” The specificity there is wonderful. Whatever you think of higher learning and its purpose, the idea of turning over a site of what may be century-old graves for dorms for twenty-somethings is striking.

For a group so obsessed with location, it’s interesting that “Crows” considers if the central location in the song really matters or not. The narrator says they “stood by a nameless hole in the ground” and that “maybe it was the right grave // maybe not.” We put our own feelings on those statements and realize how sad this tableau is, but our narrator doesn’t actually say it. They may be transcending the experience and considering that whether or not they can find her exact grave or not, they’ve still got this feeling. John Darnielle speeds through the song and while the delivery conveys a real sadness, it’s open-ended enough that you can draw your own conclusion about what the narrator finds in themselves.