music

357. Grendel’s Mother

Alex Russell Zopilote Machine , , , , , , ,

Grendel is honored in death and a feud declared in “Grendel’s Mother.”

Track: “Grendel’s Mother”
Album: Zopilote Machine (1994)

Excluding “Going to Georgia,” which we will talk about another time, “Grendel’s Mother” may be the most memorable song from Zopilote Machine. It’s interesting that John Darnielle chose such a direct title, first off, though there’s not enough here that you’d know for certain it was about Grendel’s mother if you didn’t have that. That’s never stopped him before, but in this instance it tells us that this is the story of one of the monsters in the epic poem Beowulf. The hero killed Grendel and then had to deal with his mother, who was, unsurprisingly, angry.

“Grendel’s Mother” is sung as a love song and John Darnielle sometimes calls it one at live shows. It isn’t, it’s the story of a woman directly addressing someone who has killed her son and will soon kill her. She doesn’t know that, but what’s much more interesting is what she chooses to say. She tells us about the flaming boat she laid her son on and she tells us that she’s coming after the hero, whether he runs or not. Interestingly, she references Singapore, which is a delightful anachronism. She says “you and I both know what you’ve done,” but the delivery is not furious. “Grendel’s Mother” does not sound like a song where someone declares a fight to the death, but that’s what it is. It’s this dissonance that makes it so fascinating and it may take you a few listens at first to even realize what is happening.

356. Going to Lebanon

Alex Russell Zopilote Machine , , , , , , ,

The Bright Mountain Choir echoes a simple refrain in the sweet, curious “Going to Lebanon.”

Track: “Going to Lebanon”
Album: Zopilote Machine (1994)

It took almost three decades, but we finally got a sequel to “Going to Lebanon.” If the title of “Going to Lebanon 2” didn’t say so, though, I don’t think anyone could reasonably be expected to pick up a connection. There are few enough of these sequel songs that it’s worth calling them out when they exist, but both find a duo by a shoreline as they contemplate things inside themselves. It’s not wholly unfamiliar territory, so just how critical the connection is may be up for debate. John Darnielle did dedicate the second to the person who “looks like” himself who wrote the first, which is my second favorite version of that joke. He once dedicated a song to a person who happened to have the same Social Security number as himself.

The Bright Mountain Choir (3/4, no Rachel on this one, as confirmed here) adds just a little to this one, but they make it a memorable performance. There’s a lot to imagine in this one, with a ton of description of physical space and movement. We don’t get enough backstory or emotion to understand how these two are related, but we can certainly assume, though “I saw your sash come untied” certainly carries different meaning depending on your assumptions. “Blue water, white sky” is a simple repetition, but the performance is so nice that it doesn’t matter much. For whatever reason I’ve always found this one a tough one to connect to logically, but an easy one to enjoy when I come across it. The nature of the live radio performance really works for this one and it’s worth visiting several times.

355. Quetzalcoatl Eats Plums

Alex Russell Zopilote Machine , , , , , , ,

The sight of a simple fruit tree haunts a narrator in “Quetzalcoatl Eats Plums,” but the tree’s got nothing to do with it.

Track: “Quetzalcoatl Eats Plums”
Album: Zopilote Machine (1994)

More than twenty years passed between this performance at CBGB in New York and this performance at Swedish American Hall in San Francisco. At the first, John Darnielle mentioned after playing “Quetzalcoatl Eats Plums” that he had a bunch of copies of his zine to sell for two dollars each. At the second, an enormous crowd explodes and you can hear a few people get really animated after hearing “an old one.” I am probably too fascinated by the “arc” of the Mountain Goats and there really isn’t one, but I love these comparisons. Both versions are good, as is the studio version. You really can’t go wrong with this one.

There are a few other Quetzalcoatl songs. This one finds a narrator about to seek out someone but they just can’t do it. “I meant to leave the house this morning” is a simple statement, but it’s so much more. The forces that separated these two people originally separate them still, but they exist within this person’s head. Maybe there was a reason and maybe there wasn’t, but whatever led to this split is still on this person’s heart. They can’t even make a phone call without be consumed by the sight of the plum tree in their yard. It’s not the tree, it’s everything it represents. Maybe the tree isn’t even related, but just seeing it reminds this person nothing is as simple as it appears to people looking in from outside.

354. The Black Ice Cream Song

Alex Russell Zopilote Machine , , , , , , ,

We are left to hope for the best for this small family in “The Black Ice Cream Song.”

Track: “The Black Ice Cream Song”
Album: Zopilote Machine (1994)

I’ve become somewhat obsessed with a few live shows over the course of this project. Among my short list is this show from 1994 in Ohio at a place called Stache’s that was, I believe, named for the owner’s mustache. John Darnielle plays “The Black Ice Cream Song” and introduces it as “a new one.” There’s nothing necessarily fascinating about that, it’s just how time works. In 1994, this was “a new one.” The performance isn’t notably different than the album, but that’s also to be expected. There is not a reason to mention this except that it grounds Zopilote Machine in another time.

At the time of this writing, the Mountain Goats sound very little like the band that played Stache’s that night. They aren’t writing ten-line songs with mysterious titles anymore. You have to cast back to Stache’s to understand the band that offhandedly mentioned a child in the middle of a song and what it meant to do that at the time. The stories now are more complicated, but then so many of them were two people, maybe lovers and maybe not, who came to a particular moment and soaked in it. Most of them, most of the time, should not have had children. It’s a small mention here, but it wakes you up. Also of note is the specific date in 1957. I had to check, but go karts indeed existed in 1957, but just barely. So much to wonder about in this song, though the biggest legacy has to be the rhyme of “go kart” and “devil’s heart.”

353. Azo Tle Nelli in Tlalticpac?

Alex Russell Zopilote Machine , , , , , , ,

With a title from an Aztec poem, “Azo Tle Nelli in Tlalticpac?” really requires you to pay attention to get it.

Track: “Azo Tle Nelli in Tlalticpac?”
Album: Zopilote Machine (1994)

“Azo Tle Nelli in Tlalticpac?” is one of those songs where it’s less about unpacking the meaning than it is about scraping the surface. John Darnielle played it at Zoop II, possibly the best live show he’s ever done, and said that he didn’t think he’d ever played it live. It turns out he had, but I think we can forgive him for forgetting one night in Belgium from 13 years ago. In Belgium he explained the title and said he never does that, but I think with a song called “Azo Tle Nelli in Tlalticpac?” you sorta have to break your rules. The title means “is that the only thing in the world” and seems to be a religious, repetitive statement from an Aztec poem.

I just said the title out loud which is a first for me, I realized I’ve listened to this dozens of times over the years and never tried to say it. The guitar is repetitive and, to be honest, a little challenging to listen to more than once. At that same Zoop show John Darnielle joked about how this song being second on the album was a little bit of an indefensible choice. It’s slow and droning and feels very long with the repetition. “Good news like a rare blood disorder” is pure John Darnielle, but I don’t think the pieces come together all that well on this one. The live versions are better, with better vocals that make you consider the narrator more than the studio cut. There are good moments, especially the last verse, but overall this is one that asks a lot of you to really find the center.

352. Pigs That Ran Straightaway into the Water, Triumph Of

Alex Russell We Shall All Be Healed , , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle and Peter Hughes, don’t you forget it, belt it out in “Pigs That Ran Straightaway into the Water, Triumph Of.”

Track: “Pigs That Ran Straightaway into the Water, Triumph Of”
Album: We Shall All Be Healed (2004)

I’m sure there are others, but there are not many songs beyond “Pigs That Ran Straightaway into the Water, Triumph Of” that have a “Comments by John Darnielle and Peter Hughes” section on the Mountain Goats Wiki. I’m on a tight word count, so I’ll have to call this “the song” for all other mentions, but let us just bask in that title. It’s even a joke, as though you were looking up a lot of other details about these pigs. The song, as it were, is about someone who comes from Chino and they now are going to jail. Well, they’re supposed to go to jail, but they have other ideas.

The section on the Wiki refers to a conversation that’s too long to quote here from, but has Peter Hughes and John Darnielle talking about people who commented on the song online. The commenter mentioned John but not Peter and Peter laughed about it in an introduction during a recent streamed concert the band did. It’s easy to do this, because John Darnielle by himself “is” the Mountain Goats, but the Mountain Goats are also everyone in the band with him. Just as you must be careful not to assume that every “I” in these songs is John Darnielle, the writing is also a group effort.

The song itself is phenomenal, but you don’t need me to tell you that. This is wishful thinking from someone who really needs it and it’s the best “woo” on any studio track. Scream it out when you need to steel yourself. There are other songs for harder times, but this is about a fists clenched, wolf-howl moment before bad news.

351. Only Existing Footage

Alex Russell Undercard , , , , , , , ,

“Only Existing Footage” goes very deep on the problems of creating a film as a metaphor for whatever you need.

Track: “Only Existing Footage”
Album: Undercard (2010)

As far as I can tell, the only other version of “Only Existing Footage” you can find online is this nyctaper version. I highly recommend it, as does the band since they follow the song with some banter saying it’s the best version they’ve ever done. High praise!

Beyond that we have only the studio version, but it’s a beauty. When Franklin Bruno and John Darnielle play live as either The Extra Glenns or The Extra Lens, they often sing songs together or in a kind of a round. I prefer this one with just Darnielle’s vocals, but that’s not to say this is a Mountain Goats song. The distinction between the Extra Glenns/Lens and the Mountain Goats isn’t always a clear one, but songs like this show a little more of a “mood” than the contemporary Goats music did. I’m sure you can find examples that disprove this, but Bruno sometimes seems to add a sort of distant longing that is sometimes more fury or despair with the Goats.

On Tumblr many years ago John Darnielle said he started “Only Existing Footage” but Franklin Bruno wrote part of it as a song about making an album. This is the only song on Undercard where the two share writing credit, but I don’t want to make too much of that. If you didn’t know who wrote which song, you probably wouldn’t ace a quiz. They share sensibilities, which is what makes their work so fascinating. I love the extended metaphor of “Only Existing Footage” and the imagery, no matter what meaning you draw from it.

350. Midland

Alex Russell All Hail West Texas , , , , , ,

John Darnielle makes fun of one line in “Midland” but the whole song still puts an image in your mind.

Track: “Midland”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2013 reissue)

The reissue of All Hail West Texas features songs from the time period the album was recorded as bonus tracks. One such song, “Midland,” includes a line that John Darnielle mentioned specifically when talking about these songs: “I’ve got a Kenmore single-room window unit air conditioner.” He mentioned this in a tweet from the time and spoke at length about it in an NPR interview that Kyle Barbour cites on his blog. It’s uncommon to have any direct commentary and it’s nearly unheard of to have two that match up this closely. John Darnielle says the line reflected his style at the time where he mentioned specific objects. I’ve talked about this before and how it grounds songs in the real world with real visuals. If I tell you I drove a car when I was younger, that’s not much, but if I tell you I drove a Chrysler two-door hardtop, that’s more. It doesn’t matter that you don’t know what that means to convey, it’s just more detail.

By the end, however, we have the line “I live way out where no one believes anybody could live.” It’s simple, but it’s not specific like the Kenmore line. This calls something to mind entirely different. You picture what would make this difficult for you. Is it that power and cell reception are probably harder to get? Is it the isolation itself? I don’t necessarily believe the first line is terrible and the second line is great, though I certainly see the argument, but I love how both make you picture something in very different ways.

349. The Day the Aliens Came (Hawaiian Feeling)

Alex Russell Come, Come to the Sunset Tree , , , , , , , , , ,

When you run out of people to count on, you look to the stars for hope in “The Day the Aliens Came.”

Track: “The Day the Aliens Came”
Album: Come, Come to the Sunset Tree (2005)

The last track on the companion album to The Sunset Tree is called “The Day the Aliens Came,” which John Darnielle introduces in an aside to Peter Hughes and John Vanderslice as also being, probably, called “Hawaiian Feeling.” You can unpack that any number of ways. The last line of the liner notes says “respect to the flying man: we’ve got your back.” You can also unpack that, though I am going to assume, almost assuredly incorrectly, that it’s a reference to the anthropomorphized version of your courage called Flying Man from the Super Nintendo game EarthBound. I’m sure that’s not it, but that’s sort of the space you find yourself in on this side of The Sunset Tree. You’re a boy and you must deal with forces that seem too big to deal with.

The narrator of “The Day the Aliens Came” imagines they can get away from this. It’s a fantastic notion that supernatural forces will come blast away your problems, and, indeed, your memory of your problems, but that may be all you have in the end. Mountain Goats albums don’t always end with exuberance, but the ones that do tend to end with this explosive, overstated joy. It’s a great place to leave and it’s delivered with such fury and such hope. We couldn’t be in more different territory than The Sunset Tree with “Pale Green Things,” but this isn’t about reflection. This is about closing your eyes in the middle of it and calling to anyone, anywhere, to come save you. I’m really reaching with the EarthBound reference, but if you know John Darnielle and you know the game, can’t you almost see it?

348. The Last Limit of Bhakti

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

John Darnielle offers a hopeful song at the end of an album with “The Last Limit of Bhakti.”

Track: “The Last Limit of Bhakti”
Album: Isopanisad Radio Hour (2000)

The temptation is strong to approach “The Last Limit of Bhakti” like a book report. There are so many references to crack here and so many ways to dig in. Isopanisad Radio Hour as an album title is already something to unpack, borrowing a title from the Hindu religious texts but then opening with “Abide With Me,” a hymn with references to the Book of Luke. The album takes a pivot into more familiar Mountain Goats territory with “Born Ready” and “Cobscook Bay” but then has two songs that have nearly impenetrable meanings to the point that John Darnielle makes jokes about them when he plays them live.

It’s an excellent album, but all of that leads up to “The Last Limit of Bhakti” and one must reckon with how we got there. Not every album has a clear theme, especially the shorter EPs, but there is often a consistent tone. This one ends how it began, with a deeply religious song but even more than that, a song about how to live. Bhakti is a term for religious devotion and “The Last Limit of Bhakti” finds a narrator who is prepared to go all the way. “When the world is giving your secrets all away // let me give you cover,” they say, and we question if we have this level of commitment. It’s a pretty personal message, but it’s one that you find in a handful of other Mountain Goats songs. So many narrators are obsessed with the wrong things, what if you could channel that energy in a positive way? It’s hopeful, in that way, and a nice note to head out on.