“Liza Forever Minnelli” sees the iconic Liza confronting her own survival in the wake of her mother’s legacy.

Track: “Liza Forever Minnelli”
Album: All Eternals Deck (2011)

A lot of the early Mountain Goats songs are about people who are flawed but expect the people in their life to be without flaws. It’s a common problem with human interaction wherein we expect the world to be better to us than we are to it. Most of the time it’s only evident later on, but Goats narrators often realize in the middle of the situation that they are doing damage to a relationship or a friendship. That said, they rarely correct their behavior and that is why they are worth discussing. There’s no story to “there was a problem with me and I fixed it and now I’m better.” We want to hear about the messes.

As he’s gotten older, John Darnielle has focused more on people who never had a chance to fix their issues. Amy Winehouse is the Amy in “Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1,” and the song is about how people survive in the face of great obstacles. Amy Winehouse of course didn’t do that, but Darnielle wants us to think about how much of that could actually be prevented. His heroin-addicted Frankie Lymon in “Harlem Roulette” isn’t just a drug addict, he’s a victim of his own chemicals rather than his choices.

Rehab saved Liza Minnelli, but “Liza Forever Minnelli” is more interested in the cause than the solution. We judge people based on what we know, but Darnielle wants us to think about everyone’s circumstances when we make those judgements.”The compasses I came into this world with // never really worked so good,” John/Liza sings, and despite the “memory of sweet things” we are forced to consider what really goes into being Liza Minnelli and the power of survival in spite of it.