music

322. Collapsing Stars

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

John Darnielle shows us two young warriors ready for blood but not sure if they’re going to go through with it in “Collapsing Stars.”

Track: “Collapsing Stars”
Album: Come, Come to the Sunset Tree (2005) and Dilaudid EP (2005)

“Collapsing Stars” isn’t on The Sunset Tree. It’s one of the three unique songs to the companion album Come, Come to the Sunset Tree, along with “High Doses #2” and “The Day the Aliens Came (Hawaiian Feeling).” They all share some DNA with the album and they wouldn’t feel weird to be on the main tracklist, but they are left off for a reason. My best guess with “Collapsing Stars” is that it’s a direct revenge fantasy and you already have “Lion’s Teeth,” which fits more thematically with the rest of the record.

All that said, “Collapsing Stars” is fantastic. John Darnielle’s delivery is sharp and crisp as he hits lines like “the grim particulars of poisoning the swimming pool.” These characters, who we know from other adventures on The Sunset Tree, are steeled to go through with a grim act. We have to infer why, but we know enough of this story to have a pretty good picture of it. The most interesting part of the song to me has always been the reveal at the end that they don’t go through with it. So many Mountain Goats songs hold the camera on the boats burning or the screaming argument or the dark revelation at the end, but here our young characters decide the best revenge is living well. That may explain why it doesn’t fit on the album, as that revelation would be doubled up with more space and a different sense of remorse in “Pale Green Things.”

321. Twin Human Highway Flares

Alex Russell Full Force Galesburg , , , , , , ,

An actual love song told with Mountain Goats lyrics is a powerful thing in “Twin Human Highway Flares.”

Track: “Twin Human Highway Flares”
Album: Full Force Galesburg (1997)

It is easy to make a mistake with the Mountain Goats and assume every song is about John Darnielle. Most of it, especially the early stuff, is written in first person. It’s easy to imagine a lot of it coming from the same person. It’s really tidy to say that it’s all one person and that person is John Darnielle and to build a mythos from there. Most of it isn’t, though, and most of it isn’t even gendered. With very rare exceptions, most Mountain Goats songs are deliberate in their ambiguity. Most of them find one person telling one other person something, but you can’t quite tell what.

“Twin Human Highway Flares” is a love song John Darnielle wrote for the woman that would become his wife. It’s extreme in the way that a lot of Mountain Goats songs are, with “I hope my heart explodes” as a finisher and a declaration of love. That violence is what makes it stick in your mind. “I will burn all the calendars that counted the years down to such a worthless day” is pure Darnielle, in a way that you know exactly what I mean if you’ve heard a single other Mountain Goats song. You need the quotes around “love song” for most Mountain Goats “love songs,” but this one is brutal and honest and straightforward. The guitar leads you to expect something sad and distant and the language is destructive, but this is John Darnielle at his clearest and most hopeful. This is a song about telling someone that this moment signifies a future with both of you in it, which very few Mountain Goats narrators would recognize.

320. Baboon

Alex Russell The Coroner's Gambit , , , , , , ,

The furious “Baboon” is there for you when you need it, but here’s to hoping you never feel like you need it.

Track: “Baboon”
Album: The Coroner’s Gambit (2000)

On March 1, 1997, John Darnielle played “Baboon” at Replay Lounge in Lawrence, Kansas. That show may have been recorded, but if so, I can’t find it. Later in March he played it at NYU, which you can hear here. The recording is a little muddled and the first verse sounds recorded underwater, but it’s hard to be too mad at a recording of a song three years before release. It’s remarkable that it exists at all. Replay Lounge is still there (as is NYU, if you were wondering) and still open. It’s fun to picture younger John Darnielle belting this song out for a much smaller crowd than he’d play today.

There was a time when a lot of Mountain Goats songs sounded like “Baboon.” These days even the angry songs don’t sound much like this. Maybe it’s because John Darnielle is less interested in writing about angry lovers or maybe it’s because everything is more complex and hidden now, but “Baboon” is unmistakable. This is one person furious at another and they are willing to unload both barrels. You’d never talk to someone you love like this, or you wouldn’t if you still loved them. That’s what “Baboon” is, it’s the moment you don’t love them anymore. “Black Molly” and “Oceanographer’s Choice” feel like cousin songs. These aren’t on the same album, but all three explore the same feeling and the same rage. I think “Baboon” is the best of this group.

John Darnielle put a scan of the original lyrics online here, including the verse he cut with the annotation “no good.” Interestingly, I feel like the lines he cut would feel at home in other songs of the era. “Baboon,” however, just has to show up, explode, and be done.

319. Sign of the Crow 2

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle tells us as much as he can in “Sign of the Crow 2,” but part of this story is lost to history.

Track: “Sign of the Crow 2”
Album: Unreleased (but released on the forums by John Darnielle in 2015)

I live in Chicago and in recent years, John Darnielle has done multi-night stays here on most tours. Most of the time I try to go to all of them, but in 2018 I missed the third night of the tour where John Darnielle played “Sign of the Crow 2.” You can hear it here, and you should, and hear some charming line-flubbing that is a staple of any performance of these unreleased, weird songs. This one is notably harder than most of them, with lines like “stripped and scorched and skinned” and similar structure to verses that leads to forgetting your place. In the recording you can hear what sounds like “good job babe” from the person next to the recording, as someone helps John Darnielle with the missing lyric. I’m eternally fascinated by this when it happens at shows and I’m a sucker for it.

Even the official version of “Sign of the Crow 2” has one of these towards the end, which John Darnielle commented on when he released the song himself as an apology for some late pre-releases of Heretic Pride. The demo is good, but live performances are great. It really takes off when he amps up the final verse, nearly screaming it and speeding it up. I encourage you to seek some of those out. The story itself is interesting enough and you can likely piece it together from the lyrics alone, but the performance is really what makes it for me. I am fond of the chorus, however, and I love the idea of getting just a part of the story and knowing that the rest is unattainable.

318. Wild Sage

Alex Russell Get Lonely , , , , , , , ,

In one of his absolute best songs, John Darnielle tells a story about losing grip with reality in “Wild Sage.”

Track: “Wild Sage”
Album: Get Lonely (2006)

I’m sure I’ve contradicted this statement elsewhere, but I think “Wild Sage” is the best Mountain Goats song. You could say that about “This Year” or “No Children” or a dozen other ones and be right, but I really think it’s “Wild Sage.” It’s not my personal favorite or the one I listen to most often, but I think if I had to defend one as perfect, it would be this one. It so perfectly captures what it wants to convey and it so effectively delivers the mood it wants you to feel. It’s about mental illness and how you fall into a world that is strange to you when you stop being able to connect with people. It’s about other things, too, but it’s really about that lonely feeling.

“Some days I think I’d feel better if I tried harder // most days I know it’s not true,” is the kind of statement that a lesser songwriter would ruin. If you see the Mountain Goats live in a setting with a piano and with a crowd that can handle it, you will be crushed under the weight of “Wild Sage.” It’s one of the most common live songs from Get Lonely and John Darnielle has frequently said it’s one of his favorites. I saw it once in Chicago where the room was actually totally silent other than his performance. No “woo” yelling or singing, just a group of people picturing their own moments of quiet fear and what this song means to them. There are certainly more fun Mountain Goats songs, but that’s why I don’t think there are any “better” ones.

317. Sept. 15 1983

Alex Russell Heretic Pride , , , , , ,

The Mountain Goats hold the camera on the final moments of a musician’s death in “Sept. 15 1983.”

Track: “Sept. 15 1983”
Album: Heretic Pride (2008)

“Sept. 15 1983” isn’t the only Mountain Goats song with a date for a title. It isn’t the only song that is about a murder. It isn’t the only song about someone’s last day they lived. It’s just the only one that’s all three of those. It details the murder of Prince Far I, born Michael James Williams, and his death in Jamaica. The accompanying press kit for Heretic Pride describes John Darnielle’s fascination with the nickname “King Cry Cry,” from the musician’s emotional style and how deeply he got into his music.

I’m no expert on the genre, but “Sept. 15 1983” is clearly done in the style it is to pay homage. It’s unique in that way, for a Mountain Goats song, and it grabs your attention on Heretic Pride. The album starts with a few explosions, but other than a break for “In the Craters on the Moon” and “Lovecraft in Brooklyn,” it’s mostly a slower affair. Even among songs in a similar vibe, you’ll notice this one. It was a live staple for a bit, surprisingly, and always a welcome song to hear at a show.

What I take away the most is that I didn’t know the story before I heard it, but it still conveys enough. The title suggests strongly this is a true story, and as much as we can know it is one. It’s quite the image and descriptive and specific. No matter how often you hear it, it won’t feel like a murder unless you really focus. It’s more a tribute, even with the great level of detail on a moment no one would want to focus on.

316. International Small Arms Traffic Blues

Alex Russell Tallahassee , , , , , , , ,

Love is likened to many things, but nothing quite so specific as in “International Small Arms Traffic Blues.”

Track: “International Small Arms Traffic Blues”
Album: Tallahassee (2002)

The first Mountain Goats album I ever heard was Tallahassee. The highs on that album are high, with “No Children” as the obvious standout and a staple of almost every Mountain Goats show for the last two decades. I once saw him start a show with it as he bellowed it from a balcony and then joined the stage. It’s a crazy song on a crazy album designed to show us the depths of the Alpha Couple.

These are the two characters who wander the United States and fall in and out of love through casinos and diners before they settle down and fester in Tallahassee. There are dozens and dozens of songs about them and their love, but we don’t spend much time on the side of the duo that “International Small Arms Traffic Blues” shows us.

“No Children” only hurts if there were good times. The story of the Alpha Couple only feels punishing if you get to see what daylight looks like. This isn’t a positive song by any stretch, but it does show us a lighter moment or two. We see a similar moment in “Game Shows Touch Our Lives” earlier on Tallahassee, but here it feels less like an attempt to save the good times and more like a eulogy. It’s all different degrees of hopeless or angry after this one, so here’s your last chance to say something nice and maybe, just maybe, to mean it.

315. From TG&Y

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle tells a version of his own story to help you with yours in “From TG&Y.”

Track: “From TG&Y”
Album: Unreleased (released by John Darnielle on the forums in 2007)

When John Darnielle released a version of “From TG&Y” on his band’s forums, he asked everyone to sign a pledge. If they listened to it, he said, they had to agree to not demand it is better than songs on The Sunset Tree and to, essentially, let it be what it is. It’s been played live a lot, especially for an unreleased song, and it’s a fan favorite. I will abide by the rules and say simply that I agree that it belongs “with” the songs from The Sunset Tree.

John Darnielle has said in tons of interviews that his earlier narrators are not him. They aren’t even necessarily like him, even in basic details like pronouns. It never occurred to me until I started writing this, but with very rare exceptions, you never find out the gender of a speaker or recipient of most songs. This falls away when the narrator is John Darnielle or when the story is specific, and the narrator in “From TG&Y” is John Darnielle. He has said this is “more or less a true story.”

I pair it with “You’re in Maya” in my mind. Both songs describe a young, troubled John Darnielle and both find him struggling to deal with the world around him. “One more night in this town // is gonna break me, I just know,” he says here, which pairs with “there was nowhere I needed to go // and nowhere I wanted to be.” They’re both songs that won’t be released because they’re special and they both mean a lot to people who are currently going through whatever they’re going through.

314. The Cow Song

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

The only readily available live performance of “The Cow Song” finds two people really, really enjoying it.

Track: “The Cow Song”
Album: The Hound Chronicles (1992)

“The Cow Song” opens with the lines “Bang pow, look at me now // don’t let the cows stray off too far.” It’s a very silly song, as was not totally uncommon in the early 90s for John Darnielle. The chorus is a repetition of “I love the cows.” I don’t have a lot to say, here.

Or I wouldn’t, without this tremendous piece of video history. The video starts as the song starts, but from context we can tell that two guys requested “The Cow Song” at The Union in Athens, Ohio on a September night in 2006. On most of this tour, the band played a lot of songs from Get Lonely, unsurprisingly, and there are not many deep cuts on any of the shows that have set lists. One would wonder, then, why this show has the only live performance it’s easy to find of a weird, early joke song about cows. The video answers the question. These guys asked for “The Cow Song” and John Darnielle indulged them. One wonders what we’re missing here and if it might explain why this song, of all possible songs. It’s okay to have some mystery and not know.

The venue seems like the right one to do this in, if you’re going to do this. I’m of a few minds about this. The guy who uploaded the video even describes himself as “heckling” in the description, but he’s clearly a huge fan and, for whatever reason, wants to hear this song. He asks for “The Doll Song” after it ends and John Darnielle says he’s scowling at him. Apparently actually unreleased obscurities are a bridge too far.

313. “Bluejays and Cardinals”

Alex Russell The Coroner's Gambit , , , , , , ,

“”Bluejays and Cardinals”” offers a vision of someone gone too soon that was really extraordinary when they were here.

Track: “”Bluejays and Cardinals””
Album: The Coroner’s Gambit (2000)

I’ve linked this before, but I need to call your attention to this interview John Darnielle did in 2004. The interview has 28 footnotes, including one explaining who Andrei Tarkovsky is. You never really know what you’re going to get from an interview with John Darnielle. He’s a really interesting guy, obviously, but he’s also just as likely to answer the question as he is to tell you a story about an obscure Roman general. This is not a complaint, but it’s a testament to how incredible this interview is that the interviewer recognized the challenge and rose to the task.

This interview explains the odd formatting for “”Bluejays and Cardinals,”” which officially has quotation marks in the song title, thus necessitating double quotation marks. The song, and several other direct songs about death on The Coroner’s Gambit, are about a friend of John Darnielle’s who passed away. The quotation marks reference an album that was in quotation marks called “Ashes” that supposedly had a not very satisfying reason for the marks. John Darnielle deliberately didn’t elaborate so I haven’t tried to crack that answer further.

“Shadow Song” is the sister song and it’s even more direct, but “this world couldn’t hold you // you slipped free” tells you what you need to know. It’s a song about death without being necessarily sad, though even that is not exactly accurate. The Coroner’s Gambit is a fairly brutal album and John Darnielle asks you to look directly at the subject matter a lot of the time, but the high moments of “”Bluejays and Cardinals”” are really something. It’s nice to think of someone who makes baseballs go further just because they rule.