mountain goats

254. Done Bleeding

Alex Russell In League with Dragons , , , , , , ,

The Mountain Goats explore the feeling of moving through points in your life in “Done Bleeding.”

Track: “Done Bleeding”
Album: In League with Dragons (2019)

John Darnielle has called In League with Dragons a very personal album. It started as a concept album of sorts and those bones are still there, but the one-two punch of “Done Bleeding” and “Younger” that opens the album tell you it is something else entirely as a finished product. At many live shows during the album launch, the band started shows with the two songs that start the album, in order. That’s uncommon, but it makes sense here as these are connected.

“Younger” is a puzzle filled with references to other Mountain Goats songs and “Done Bleeding” is a story about what happens after that. On I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats, a podcast I have to assume you’ve already listened to if you’re reading this, John Darnielle said the title refers to self-mutilation and the period of life after that stops. It’s a really compelling conversation, even among the other episodes that go deeper into song construction. The episode for “Done Bleeding” is interesting because John Darnielle rarely speaks this frankly about his writing, even on the podcast. He talks about the idea of a new part of one’s life where it’s possible to look at someone else that’s in a point you were once in and have difficulty relating to their situation. You aren’t better or worse off, but you aren’t where they are right now.

There are a lot of songs that dance around this emotion, but “Done Bleeding” confronts it directly. You are never really done with grief, with anxiety, with fear, but you recognize moments where you realize you have escaped something and hope that others who haven’t escaped yet find their way out. This is a song not about pitying that person, but about your own next steps and the process of moving on.

253. Going to Mexico

Alex Russell The Hound Chronicles , , , , , , ,

In a one-sided story, we hear one person get increasingly excited in “Going to Mexico.”

Track: “Going to Mexico”
Album: The Hound Chronicles (1992)

The narrator in “Going to Mexico” cannot help themselves. So many Mountain Goats narrators find themselves in this position. At the start of the song, this one sees a person through a window and really, really wants us to know that they see them. A lot of the early songs repeat like this, but you really notice it in “Going to Mexico.”

Taken literally, this character touches the other character’s hair and is overwhelmed. They experience this feeling several ways, notice the world around them, and then imagine a deeper relationship than they seem to actually have with this person. It’s sung as a love song, but it seems like it’s not a story the other person would tell the same way.

I don’t know if that’s reading into “Going to Mexico” too deeply or not. The more you listen to it the more it becomes the story of someone who thinks they are in a relationship (or at least some sort of semi-intimate situation) with someone that we never get to hear from at all.

“Last Man on Earth” is my favorite song that expresses that same idea, but much less ambiguously. I’m more than willing to be reading this one wrong, but the birds coughing in the trees and the screaming chickens tell me that all is not well as this character gazes through an open window. It’s an interesting trick, if that’s what it is, and I love the cracks in John Darnielle’s voice as this character gets so close to their version of ecstasy.

252. In Corolla

Alex Russell Get Lonely , , , , , , ,

The saddest Mountain Goats album ends with “In Corolla,” a brief prayer, and then one final walk.

Track: “In Corolla”
Album: Get Lonely (2006)

Get Lonely is an extremely difficult listen. There’s a great story that has never seemed true to me (but great stories never really need to be) that John Darnielle asked the author of the Get Lonely review for Pitchfork what they thought about the new album. The reviewer said they were still processing it and John Darnielle asked if they had a girlfriend. They responded affirmatively and John Darnielle said “I hope she leaves you. Then you’ll understand it.”

Even as a joke it seems a little blunt for John Darnielle, but that’s what makes it a great story. Get Lonely is the “sad” Mountain Goats album, and while that’s certainly calling this the wettest water to a certain degree it’s also a critical designation. Characters are further out away from humanity here than on most of the other albums. By the final track, we should be prepared for anyone to tell us anything, so long as it isn’t good.

“In Corolla” is crushing. The story is very simple, but it seems to take people some time to admit what’s happening. Most online discussion features a few people who push back against the narrative and insist the character is speaking in metaphor or something, but, no, this is a song about someone drowning themselves and knowing “no one was gonna come and get me.”

There really isn’t much more to say than that. I’ve always been partial to it, as I am most of the album closing tracks, but it’s best not to look too closely at “In Corolla.” The band used to close live shows with it, briefly, which has given way to songs like “Spent Gladiator 2” in recent years. Be careful to come back to the shore, even when you feel like you want to keep walking.

251. Toolshed

Alex Russell Heretic Pride , , , , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle digs into the supposedly hidden message in “Stairway to Heaven” in “Toolshed.”

Track: “Toolshed”
Album: Heretic Pride (2008)

In 1982, a televangelist claimed to have “deciphered” backwards messages in “Stairway to Heaven” that included the line “there was a little toolshed where the sad man made us suffer.” You’re probably familiar with this idea that rock songs have “secret” codes in them when played backwards. Led Zeppelin says it’s not true and you can listen for yourself to see how you feel about it.

The “toolshed” line gave birth to the Mountain Goats song “Toolshed” as a bonus track for Heretic Pride. It’s one of the darkest songs John Darnielle has even written. It seems to imagine what happened to the person who suffered in a little toolshed.

So many Mountain Goats songs speak of danger as something that’s potentially going to happen. There’s a great deal of darkness in the world of John Darnielle’s songs, but it rarely manifests the way it does in “Toolshed.” We don’t get the full answer, but it’s clear that these three characters endured some sort of abuse and were forever changed by it. “Secrets to keep // records to seal up” suggests something very grim, and “kittens weighed down with rocks” really drives the point home.

There’s just enough detail that we feel sick about what we’re imagining. The supposedly hidden message from “Stairway to Heaven” is the entire chorus and it’s odd and suggestive if you believe it exists in that song, but it’s so much more terrifying when you picture the people who experienced whatever happened in that toolshed going back to their lives.

250. Ambivalent Landscape Z

Alex Russell Undercard , , , , , ,

In the cornfields of Iowa, clues begin to mount but may not help for the narrator in “Ambivalent Landscape Z.”

Track: “Ambivalent Landscape Z”
Album: Undercard (2010)

John Darnielle wrote a novel called “Universal Harvester” that’s worth your time, but you’ve probably already read it if you’re reading something like this. The phrase showed up in “Ambivalent Landscape Z” nearly a decade earlier as a narrator spoke of the “cold gaze of the Universal Harvester.” The book has overshadowed the company, as far as Google searches go, but Universal Harvester was a company that made farming equipment in Iowa that was acquired by another company that makes farming equipment in Iowa. The company that acquired them said they weren’t going to change anything. I don’t know if that turned out to be true or not.

Both the novel and “Ambivalent Landscape Z” take place in the fields of Iowa. This is the “sequel,” I suppose, to “Malevolent Cityscape X” and “Malevolent Seascape Y,” though I’m not sure there’s enough of a line to draw through all three that it matters. In this song, one character tries to track another one and fails to do so, both emotionally and physically. “You threw your car keys away,” they note, “you left a bunch of dummy footprints on the clay.” This is someone who definitely does not want to be followed, but that’s not going to stop some people.

All of this happens, but then we have the chorus. “I’ll never see you again // but until then” is the kind of contradiction that a John Darnielle narrator loves. This person is piecing together a faked crime scene and losing faith that it’s one they can solve, even with the information that it’s not real. Who among us hasn’t felt that way, to say nothing of needing a fallout shelter to “fall out in.” The delivery is stellar, and it’s really a standout in the Extra Glenns/Lens catalog.

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.

248. Alpha in Tauris

Alex Russell Zopilote Machine , , , , , , , , ,

The Alpha Couple, or people much like them, find themselves in the moments after the fact in “Alpha in Tauris.”

Track: “Alpha in Tauris”
Album: Zopilote Machine (1994)

“The moment’s sweet, but it’s all wrong” is as close to a thesis statement for the Alpha Couple as you’ll find. Prior to Tallahassee, the album entirely about this couple, you can look at song titles to identify a song about these specific characters. You also have to look past some conflicting details, but the alpha songs are really about the emotions that go into difficult relationships rather than two specific people. John Darnielle says “Alpha in Tauris” is about one character having an affair with a much older character, which doesn’t seem to fit the rest of the Alpha Couple story, but why let that matter?

Whether this is part of that saga or not, “Alpha in Tauris” is thematically similar. John Darnielle has played it a lot over the years, especially for a song from 1994, and at a show in Austin in 2003 he simply said “it’s a true story.” We can assume he means it’s true for someone, but you can make of that what you wish. Whoever these characters are, they are in a tense moment when we find them. “I’m the model of composure out there,” our narrator says, and John Darnielle’s voice cracks over “but you oughta see me shaking later on.”

Many of the portrayals of infidelity in Mountain Goats songs focus on the cheaters and how they feel about their illicit love. “Alpha in Tauris” holds the camera on the moment after the “good” part. “My brain gets flooded six hours later,” they say, twice, and we live briefly in the moment when someone considers their actions. It isn’t clear if this is regret or just general anguish, but it seems like they want this all to be simpler, but might not appreciate it as much if that were the case.

247. Wild Palm City

Alex Russell Ghana , , , , , ,

You can trace the history of “Wild Palm City” through unreleased secret songs, early releases, and The Beatles.

Track: “Wild Palm City”
Album: Ghana (1999)

In the liner notes of Ghana, the compilation that includes “Wild Palm City,” John Darnielle said the song was “early, very early, unlistenably early.” In fact, it comes from the 1991 Shrimper release Back to the Egg, Asshole, a so-called “anti-tribute” to The Beatles. The tape includes other Mountain Goats adjacent artists Franklin Bruno, Wckr Spgt, and Refrigerator and appears to be a joke wherein everyone submitted a song that was then re-titled to appear to be a Beatles track. I can’t find recordings of anything else and the only info online about Back to the Egg, Asshole seems to be one person who bought it because they like Lou Barlow, who contributed the “tribute” to “Revolution 9.”

If that seems complicated, it’s to explain that “Wild Palm City” is one of the absolute first Mountain Goats songs and only exists in this format because Dennis Callaci asked John Darnielle if he could re-title one of his songs “Within You, Without You,” the George Harrison track from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The liner notes for Back to the Egg, Asshole further the joke and say the song “plays with George Harrison’s oh so deep transcendentalness.” It doesn’t, of course, but that’s also part of the joke.

There’s also another unreleased Goats song from the early days called “Escape to Wild Palm City” that has publicly available lyrics but otherwise seems shrouded in mystery. They seem potentially connected, but both are also lyrically reminiscent of a lot of the songs John Darnielle was writing then.

The song is one of the better ones from the earliest days. None of these crazy details about how it came to be matter, but it’s fascinating to consider the history of this two-and-a-half minutes of music as part of the larger catalog.

246. Song for Dana Plato

Alex Russell Bitter Melon Farm, Songs for Peter Hughes , , , , , , , ,

“Song for Dana Plato” leaves us with a feeling rather than telling the story of the woman herself.

Track: “Song for Dana Plato”
Album: Songs for Peter Hughes (1995) and Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

John Darnielle likely wrote “Song for Dana Plato” in 1994 or 1995, based on the release date of Songs for Peter Hughes. Dana Plato was making the final movies of her life in those years, long after her time on Diff’rent Strokes. Her personal life was difficult and she’d been recently arrested several times for robbery and forging a prescription for painkillers.

John Darnielle is fascinated by tragic figures, and more specifically what leads to these peopling becoming tragic figures. Dana Plato once said that her mother “made her normal” but did not prepare her for real life, which made her a great child star but led to a difficulty in adjusting to the world as her role in it changed. There’s obviously a lot that’s possible to unpack there, but it establishes her a prime subject for a Mountain Goats song.

After Dana Plato died, John Darnielle played “Song for Dana Plato” several times on a tour. The tone is interesting to reconcile with the subject matter. Dana Plato’s story is a sad example of what happens when someone attempts to process addiction. John Darnielle doesn’t want to focus on robbing a video store, it’s more important to think about how this person feels and what the experience is like.

“What kind of world is it that comes headlong at you and then swerves at the last possible second,” John Darnielle says, which is as good a description as any of immense fame and then a need to risk it all for $164. “It’s this one,” he says, “it’s this one.”

245. Dutch Orchestra Blues

Alex Russell Isopanisad Radio Hour , , , , , , ,

“Dutch Orchestra Blues” sees a relationship potentially end but also draws attention away with a trick.

Track: “Dutch Orchestra Blues”
Album: Isopanisad Radio Hour (2000)

There are about a dozen performances of “Dutch Orchestra Blues” across the hundreds of live shows that Mountain Goats fans have taped and uploaded online. In Holland, John Darnielle told the audience that he was picturing a particular street when he wrote the song. In many performances, he joked about it being a “middle period Mountain Goats song” and said it was one of his favorites.

As far as “explanations” go, there’s a conclusive one for this song. At a show in Arizona in 2018, John Darnielle told the audience he thought of “Dutch Orchestra Blues” as a song that builds towards an explanation and doesn’t deliver on it. It’s a joke, in a way, and one that a lot of the best songs of this era execute well. Other songs tell us the Easter Bunny is coming or water is going to destroy all things or wild dogs are coming down from the mountain and we’re left to wonder what that means for us. “Dutch Orchestra Blues” follows a similar trajectory but doesn’t even get to that point. Our narrator even says that they might not walk by and someone else might not even notice.

As far as that concept goes, this may be the best example. Our narrator sets the stakes with “you may love me // or you may not love me at all anymore” but immediately follows that with a description of the titular Dutch orchestra and the sun shining in Holland in the spring. You are certainly welcome to believe it to be something representative, but I think the sudden turn is the point. The possible end of this love is supposed to be so grand a moment, and yet something else veers us away from that and leaves us considering what just happened.