Going to Tennessee

145. Pure Heat

Alex Russell Protein Source of the Future...Now!, Why You All So Thief? , , , , , , , , ,

 

“Pure Heat” reminds us that even in the most beautiful moments, it’s possible to fear the end of so many things at once.

Track: “Pure Heat”
Album: Why You All So Thief? (1994) and Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

The “pure” songs are all intense. They’re not designed to be connected, but you can trace some patterns through them. Beyond intensity, they often share a vagueness. “Pure Heat” is one scene with one person seeing another one. There are so many Mountain Goats songs that fit that description that it is important to remember how rare that is. Generally songs are active or describe long spans of time. John Darnielle wants to tell you a story about one moment between two people and he wants you to see it vividly. Everything else you bring is your own deal.

Alone, this might be a song about two happy people in one happy slice of a happy life. Knowledge of the Mountain Goats greater catalog means that is unlikely to be true. These two people may be in love, but they’re more likely in the final stages of something they once thought was love. They are in a beautiful place, to be sure, and “Pure Heat” is a clear reminder that the California native son John Darnielle also loves Iowa and North Carolina. Their time in the fields with kerosene lamps and cool breezes may be picturesque, but it is tenuous.

“Pure Heat” is also the only other Mountain Goats song on Why You All So Thief? with “Going to Tennessee.” John Darnielle says they are both about “cheating death.” We’re forced to connect the two further. They could both describe the same couple, using sex and beautiful moments to avoid the greater realities of their situation. Many Mountain Goats songs would mean a breakup or a toxic relationship as a “situation” but the fear these two are staving off may go even deeper than that.

098. Going to Tennessee

Alex Russell Protein Source of the Future...Now!, Why You All So Thief? , , , , , , , ,

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bLSgWd8jbk

Two lovers share a quiet moment and feel a different kind of warmth as the sun sets in Memphis in “Going to Tennessee.”

Track: “Going to Tennessee”
Album: Why You All So Thief? (1994) and Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

John Darnielle loves geography. There are at least 50 “Going to…” songs in the catalog, but I never expected to find one about my hometown. I’m from Memphis, Tennessee, which is a far less exotic location than Bolivia or Denmark or Malibu, but it’s a specific kind of place that conjures an image in your mind even if you haven’t been there.

Darnielle’s song “Going to Tennessee” is heavy on specifics even though it avoids the ones you’d think. There’s no Elvis or Beale Street or anything even like them. We only get scattered facts, like the lack of a baseball team and the presence of Arkansas nearby.

“Going to Tennessee” uses specificity to set the stage on the Mississippi River in Memphis, but it’s after more general emotions. The couple lives close to the interstate and they share tender moments in their likely dingy apartment. One washes their face and the other says “I am glad I am alive,” which is an extremely rare sentence in a Mountain Goats song. We’re left to discern that they share at least a kind of love. That’s not uncommon by itself, but these two exit their song in an interesting place.

John Darnielle has said the song is about “cheating death” and there is no better way to feel like you’ve gotten one over on the end times than to feel boundless love. The sun is setting in one of the hottest towns in America, but the couple describes their skin as “warming up.” It’s not solely a love song, but that ending suggests at least one more day of joy for two people in the Bluff City.