mountain goats

244. Blood Capsules

Alex Russell Blood Capsules , , , , ,

Dance along with “Blood Capsules” as you wait for the inevitable ending even the narrator sees coming.

Track: “Blood Capsules”
Album: Blood Capsules (2015)

It is a standard Mountain Goats move to leave one of the best songs from the album off of it. John Darnielle has said that in his early years as a songwriter, he loved to leave hidden gems on import EPs and compilations. He described it as a willful insistence to keep the mystery alive and to reward people willing to do the work. Modernity has really killed this idea, but there was a time when you needed to find the Japanese import version or track down an out-of-print album to really find the best of the best, Mountain Goats or otherwise.

“Blood Capsules” is, as John Darnielle nearly always describes it, “a dance number.” It’s an extremely polished and consistent one, with every live performance including a version of the intro from the album where John Darnielle names the players and the location. It would be at home on Beat the Champ, obviously, and I stand by it as one of the absolute best songs from this era. Just try not to “woo” along with the intro after hearing it once.

The story is straightforward. A wrestler is going to rob a bank after exhausting their other options. What makes it interesting is the final verse, after telling us how they got to this moment, they say “I know this isn’t going to work // I guess I’ll see ya when I see ya // I can’t work any other jobs // this was my last and best idea.” What could you say to that character? So many characters across Mountain Goats songs offer us a suggestion of what comes next or just an idea about how they got here, but “Blood Capsules” is unique. We know exactly what happened, exactly what happens next, and exactly how it will go.

243. Water Song II

Alex Russell Hot Garden Stomp , , , , , , ,

Preparations are made for an event of high importance in “Water Song II.”

Track: “Water Song II”
Album: Hot Garden Stomp (1993)

“Whoever wrote these lyrics, he really does seem to say a lot of words.” – John Darnielle

The above quote comes from this City Winery show. In April of 2016, the Mountain Goats played three shows at City Winery in Chicago and three in New York. Most were taped and I suggest you listen to them, especially if you’ve never been able to see the band play live. The ensemble works well in this setting and it’s a great way to hear some of the earlier songs played in a new way.

That said, the only live performance I can find of “Water Song II” is from the solo set at one of those shows. John Darnielle plays it straight and while it would be great to hear with drums and horns, it’s just as interesting to hear the “original” version.

“Water Song II” really is wordy, even for a Mountain Goats song. Our narrator tells someone to expect water and lots of it, over and over. “When my friend gets here he will set things right,” they tell us, and this friend continues to be “splashing and gurgling for you.” You get the sense that exactly what’s happening here doesn’t really matter so much as the feeling of impending action. Much like flowing water, something inevitable is coming.

“The Water Song” that forces this one to have a “two” designation is from just the year before in 1992. The connection seems to be around water as a force. In the former song, one person uses water as a metaphor to tell another how they feel. In “Water Song II,” it’s less about feeling and more about doing, but it’s still about something that’s been coming on strong and is just about to happen, whether you’re ready or not.

242. Alpha Omega

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

The original end to the Alpha Couple story, “Alpha Omega” features a last meal of a different variety.

Track: “Alpha Omega”
Album: Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

“Alpha Omega” was released on a compilation album in 1995 (and re-released in 1999 as part of another album) and was originally the last song in the story of the Alpha Couple. Tallahassee would eventually follow it in 2002 and offer a deeper look at the couple that gets together and breaks apart over dozens of songs across the Mountain Goats’ career.

It would have been a fine ending if Tallahassee weren’t such a spectacular album. The narrator wakes up to a note on scented paper that tells them it is over. They then make boiled peanuts and think about what this all means. This is the same couple as the two in “No Children,” so an eventual sad end was inevitable. The boiled peanuts is just a John Darnielle touch. If you’ve never had them, you should try them. Just like the Mountain Goats, no one “likes” boiled peanuts, you feel very strongly if you like them at all.

One half of the Alpha Couple standing around with boiled peanuts and a goodbye note is a sad image, but it’s even sadder with this delivery. John Darnielle’s voice cracks the same way your voice would crack if you told someone about this moment in your life. It stands out even among other intentional cracks from the early albums.

“Alpha Rats Nest” ultimately replaces this song in the story and offers us an ending that is slightly more ambiguous. The Alpha Couple doesn’t survive either story, but Tallahassee doesn’t have this hard door-slam moment. Tallahassee is possibly the most complete Mountain Goats album, but we’ll always have this earlier branch of the story where someone actually got out alive.

241. Yam, the King of Crops

Alex Russell Protein Source of the Future...Now!, Yam, the King of Crops , , , , , , ,

“Yam, the King of Crops” dances around what a “good sickness” can mean.

Track: “Yam, the King of Crops”
Album: Yam, the King of Crops (1994) and Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

The title track from Yam, the King of Crops, is all imagery. John Darnielle’s narrator tells us about “Jericho palm trees” that are “plush and green.” They tell us about the the sun twice, both times bright and red. Early Mountain Goats songs have a ton of descriptions of food, but rarely this many. The narrator tells us about celery, tomatoes, and the chorus line of “a plate of sweet potatoes.”

Beyond the language, the delivery is interesting to consider. The character sounds almost sly as they tell us about having a fever, but in a good way. Twice before the chorus we hear about this positive sickness, or at least a sickness this person is in tune with enough to enjoy. “I felt sick, I felt good” is an opening line for the ages and a solid summary of many of the early narrators, but to hear it repeated really drives it home.

In Mountain Goats songs, someone bringing someone else food is an easy way to signify compassion or love. That’s true outside of these songs, obviously, but it’s really common in the early catalog. This album is full of strife for the characters and emotional distress, but by the end our characters are sharing sweet potatoes and fried garlic. There’s still something to unpack in one character referencing Galatea when looking at the other, but it’s a nice enough moment that we can focus on the food.

240. Chinese Rifle Song

Alex Russell Protein Source of the Future...Now!, Yam, the King of Crops , , , , , , , ,

Our narrator dreams of better times that aren’t coming back in “Chinese Rifle Song.”

Track: “Chinese Rifle Song”
Album: Yam, the King of Crops (1994) and Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

Immediately after “Two Thousand Seasons,” a song that is an exact transcription of the prologue of a novel, comes “Chinese Rifle Song” on the 1994 release Yam, the King of Crops. The adjustment is severe. The former song is haunting and speaks of genocide and slavery. The latter is one character talking about laying on a patio. Why does this shift so abruptly?

There is no public commentary on “Chinese Rifle Song.” It’s one of the few songs that most of the usual resources are completely silent about. There are no live performances recorded that I can find. It exists solely as this version that was released in 1994 and re-released in 1999.

It feels like a song in conversation with “Omega Blaster” from the same release. The references on Yam, the King of Crops are to African literature, but the theme is heartbreak. The characters throughout the album process the end of things together and tell us what the experience is like. In “Omega Blaster” our narrator has decided to leave and they tell us what that feels like to them. By the time “Chinese Rifle Song” comes along, sure, they hear a Chinese rifle, but they also have a serene moment broken by life outside.

We don’t get enough in this song to know if that is the case. It really doesn’t matter. “Chinese Rifle Song” is, on the surface, a song about someone laying on a patio and hearing rifles go off. If that’s where you want to leave it, you wouldn’t be the only one. As for me, what I choose to hear in the narrator’s hopeful “dreaming” and sharp delivery of “sounding in the air” is the final moments of hoping before they can’t anymore.

239. Two Thousand Seasons

Alex Russell Protein Source of the Future...Now!, Yam, the King of Crops , , , , , , , ,

With an alarming backdrop, “Two Thousand Seasons” quotes a text to ask us to consider what text can do.

Track: “Two Thousand Seasons”
Album: Yam, the King of Crops (1994) and Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

Two Thousand Seasons is a novel by Ayi Kwei Armah. “Two Thousand Seasons” is also a song by the Mountain Goats. The lyrics, with the minor exception of a repetition of the first line twice at the end, are the first half of the prologue to the novel.

I have not read Two Thousand Seasons, and I’ll admit that prior to writing this I had not given much thought to this song. For all of the creeping dread that exists behind so many Mountain Goats songs, few can be said to be “eerie,” but this one certainly is. The original text does much of that lifting, but you cannot discount John Darnielle’s additions. The rolling boombox evokes many things over the early songs, but this may be the best use to create a mood.

The title refers to two thousand years of African history and the impact of colonialism and enslavement on the continent. It is impossibly large to consider as a subject within a song, but it’s made even larger by the gravity of “two thousand seasons” as an idea. A season is already a long time to all of us, certainly, and the original text asks us to consider that as a tiny piece of a larger story.

Yam, the King of Crops is full of direct references to African literature, but none more direct than a song that is an extended quote. It’s beyond the scope of my abilities as a writer to break down what this prologue means, but it’s fascinating that John Darnielle uses this specific language about storytelling (and the challenges and limitations of it, to a degree) as an entire song. If it does nothing more than cause you to consider the text, it has succeeded as a song.

238. Alagemo

Alex Russell Protein Source of the Future...Now!, Yam, the King of Crops , , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle grounds the universal in the extremely specific in “Alagemo.”

Track: “Alagemo”
Album: Yam, the King of Crops (1994) and Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

You are not likely to experience the exact situation discussed in “Alagemo.” One character laments the loss of another. It’s a loss that’s very specific, as the narrator tells us the other has dedicated themselves to a “religious cult of flesh dissolution.” We’re well outside most people’s experience at this point, but John Darnielle loves to set simple emotions in complex situations. You don’t know this feeling or likely even what it would mean to have that feeling. You do know what it means to have someone leave.

The “reveal” of the situation happens in the first verse. This is somewhat uncommon for a Mountain Goats song. If something surprising is going to happen or be revealed, it tends to be more of a punchline. We often find only at the end that wild dogs are coming to get us or the lie the narrator was talking about was actually much more serious than we might have assumed otherwise. In “Alagemo” we find out quickly that this character isn’t heartbroken (or at least isn’t just heartbroken), they’re in a much more serious situation than that.

Even with the subject matter, John Darnielle rounds out the song with a universal emotion. The language is intentionally mundane as the narrator says that simple elements of nature made them think of the other person, then again, then “a third time.” This is how it goes, be it an unexpected death or a divorce or a religious cult, when someone leaves. You stare into the dirt and you wonder where they’ve gone.

237. Coco-Yam Song

Alex Russell Protein Source of the Future...Now!, Yam, the King of Crops , , , , , , , ,

The sample that leads into “Coco-Yam Song” sets you up to expect something fun, but it’s anything but.

Track: “Coco-Yam Song”
Album: Yam, the King of Crops (1994) and Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

Kyle Barbour runs The Annotated Mountain Goats, an essential resource for anyone trying to approach John Darnielle’s work and the hundreds of references within it. The annotations for “Coco-Yam Song” talk about what a cocoyam is (a food staple that can be roasted, boiled, or baked), what “figurines of thieves” means (a likely reference to vodou), and why someone would break apart a kola nut (it signifies a meaningful occasion). These footnotes help listeners read the meaning behind the lines themselves, which is especially helpful given John Darnielle’s prolific output and his interest in varied mythology and background material.

The note that’s most interesting, however, is a link to this interview published in Space City Rock. It’s worth reading in full, but the relevant reference for this song is John Darnielle’s quote about samples. The early albums have all sorts of these clips, which are “either to point a listener in a certain direction or to provide stark contrast,” John Darnielle explains. For “Coco-Yam Song” it is a clip of “Always True to You in My Fashion,” a tongue-in-cheek song about a woman accepting gifts from other men but remaining true, in her fashion, to one love. John Darnielle says this one is about contrast, which makes sense given one is a playful description of sexuality and materialism and the other is someone preparing violence after theft.

Our narrator says “I will make them regret // that they haven’t brought my yams back yet.” We could not be farther away from the slightly silly world of “Always True to You in My Fashion,” and it’s fun to picture John Darnielle selecting this clip for just that reason. Your expectations are completely subverted, and what’s more serious than the rituals before a life-or-death response to a “neighboring clan?”

236. Quetzalcoatl Comes Through

Alex Russell Protein Source of the Future...Now!, Yam, the King of Crops , , , , , , , ,

A powerful being looms over the conversation in “Quetzalcoatl Comes Through.”

Track: “Quetzalcoatl Comes Through”
Album: Yam, the King of Crops (1994) and Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

During the only other available version of “Quetzalcoatl Comes Through” that I am able to find, John Darnielle refers to it as a song where he was learning he could yell. That live version, uploaded to YouTube almost ten years ago at the time of this writing, is obviously different than the version on the 1994 release Yam, the King of Crops. The original is quiet and curious and the live version is loud and biting. The message isn’t different, but how you experience it might be.

I usually try to listen to every live version of these songs when I approach them. John Darnielle has said, often, that he isn’t the last voice on his own work and that interpretations differ and don’t need to be conclusive. It’s the weakness of using live stage banter as a primary text. Taken at face value, you’d be confused, because this is as far away from a “yelling” song as anything, so what is he talking about?

That performance in Missouri is the only one I can find, but it’s certainly not the only one. That comment makes us imagine the other versions and the other variations within those versions. If your version of “Quetzalcoatl Comes Through” is a screamer, the bite on the line “he put our love in clear perspective” is a fierce rebuttal of a relationship. If it’s the quiet one, it’s a contemplation that might go either way. It’s both, really, and so many things beyond both that you could only have experienced on certain nights in London or San Francisco or Iowa City. It’s often been said that it’s the journey and not the destination, but for some songs it’s also about the parts of the journey that you don’t even get to see.

235. Duke Ellington

Alex Russell Protein Source of the Future...Now! , , , ,

A lone character confronts what’s led them to this point as they picture a performance in “Duke Ellington.”

Track: “Duke Ellington”
Album: Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

There is not one theme to the Mountain Goats. It’s tempting to summarize John Darnielle as someone who writes about loss and sadness, but there are so many songs of hope and desperation. It’s more correct, in my mind, to say there is one mood through the Mountain Goats’ catalog. The characters differ and the desires those characters have differ, but they all exist in a world that is realized in one way. It’s a difficult world, to be sure, but it’s one that shows the residents of it great beauty in small things. This is true especially in the early days.

Before the re-release in 1999, “Duke Ellington” was originally part of a compilation, The Long Secret, released in 1995 by Harriet Records. Both the company and the compilation draw names from Harriet the Spy, which is interesting but neither here nor there. John Darnielle said he left it off Sweden deliberately and that it has a “mystical sadness” regarding the namesake musician Duke Ellington.

The narrator is in Sweden and pictures (or sees) Duke Ellington playing piano. “It utterly wasted me // in Sweden,” they say of the image. We know what they mean and we draw on our own memories of powerful music. John Darnielle speaks of the “aftermath,” a strong term for the moments after a song. It all builds to our character watching this performance and saying “I’d had just about enough of losing things” and telling us they are alone, away from the person to whom they hope to convey this message. This song is solitary, alone from the other albums, but the character is, as well, though they fit right in with so many other people we meet in John Darnielle’s world.