music

261. Waco

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

Two doomed lovers talk about their circumstances in grandiose terms in “Waco.”

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

Counting the alternate version of “Jenny,” the reissue of All Hail West Texas in 2013 had seven songs that weren’t on the first release. One is safe to assume that “Waco” was the closest to making it originally, as it’s the only one that seems to have been played live. In the liner notes of the reissue, John Darnielle says he liked the song but didn’t like the second take, so this demo version is all you get. That explains why it ends so abruptly and why something this complete isn’t on the album.

“Waco” would fit right in on All Hail West Texas. The title explains the first verse, as this is about the Branch Davidians who met their end during the raid in Waco, Texas in 1993. If you’re an American of a certain age, the word “Waco” isn’t something you connect to anything else other than that event. It’s a disaster that is grand in scope, and it’s not surprising to hear a Mountain Goats narrator connect their crumbling relationship to a tremendous event.

The parallels between the verses are purposeful. The first verse seems to be actually the Branch Davidians, speaking figuratively about the dead rising and Jesus offering the only salvation people are interested in. The second verse borrows the zombie language that John Darnielle typically reserves for miserable relationships, but then inserts the same chorus to show how much the two can resemble each other. These two talk about coming to Waco to “get away from our friends” and to “relish the short time left.” They aren’t going to die in fiery disaster in a compound, but they’ve got bad things coming to them and they feel just as doomed.

260. All Devils Here Now

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , , , ,

The neighbors look in on the Alpha Couple in “All Devils Here Now.”

Track: “All Devils Here Now”
Album: Unreleased (Released on Twitter by John Darnielle in 2012)

John Darnielle released “All Devils Here Now” himself on Twitter and said it “shares psychic & geographic space with all the other stuff I was writing about in 2002 & 2003.” Even if he didn’t offer that directly, you’d pick out the Alpha Couple from the story.

Most of the songs about the ill-fated couple in Tallahassee, Florida focus on how they fall in and out of love with each other as they realize this isn’t going to work. It’s rare to get an outsider’s perspective, but “All Devils Here Now” shows us what it’s like to live next to these people and consider their existence without all the details. From what we know, these neighbors see enough, but lines like “you see us at the grocery store // you wonder what we’re shopping for” are evocative. Who among us hasn’t felt that?

The few live versions that exist don’t do justice to the song, for my money. The bugs in the background are real, as John Darnielle confirmed when he released the song, and live it becomes more jaunty than the demo. The demo has the feel of being on the back porch with these two and hearing them tell you these things. There’s an element of self awareness to the delivery mechanism. The Alpha Couple always knows they are doomed and what sets them apart is usually their willingness to engage with that fact, if only internally. They don’t embrace the darkness until the end, which puts this probably closer to the end of the trajectory, but “shrieks and squeals” and “worse for wear” could describe any weekend with these two.

259. Supergenesis

Alex Russell Black Pear Tree EP , , , , ,

We hear from the serpent on what happened after the fall in “Supergenesis.”

Track: “Supergenesis”
Album: Black Pear Tree EP (2008)

A. K. M. Adam, a Biblical scholar at Oxford University, wrote a lengthy paper in 2011 about John Darnielle’s use of religious symbols. It’s the kind of thing that any Mountain Goats fan should be in awe of, not just for the scope but for the origin of it. This is a scholar, someone who has dedicated their life’s work to this subject, that feels it is important to spend a lot of time digging through Mountain Goats songs.

He spends some time on “Supergenesis,” from the 2008 collaboration between the Mountain Goats and Kaki King. The song is about the Biblical serpent from Genesis and what happens after the snake is forced from Eden. The paper is worth reading for far more than that, but Adam calls out specifically that the “battle plan” this snake is waiting to enact and the judgement it feels is so unfair are both about God. I suppose that’s obvious, but it really makes you contend with what is happening in “Supergenesis.”

The Mountain Goats toured with Kaki King around the release of Black Pear Tree and played much of the EP most nights. Live, “Supergenesis” often became a sprawling jam where Kaki King opened up for minutes at a time. It’s worth checking a few of those out, because the message of the song is striking once you reckon with the scale of the conflict, but the guitar is really what makes “Supergenesis” something to get lost in.

258. Sinaloan Milk Snake Song

Alex Russell Zopilote Machine , , , , , ,

The Bright Mountain Choir delivers a strange, beautiful performance on “Sinaloan Milk Snake Song.”

Track: “Sinaloan Milk Snake Song”
Album: Zopilote Machine (1994)

“Sinaloan Milk Snake Song” has been played live and recorded a handful of times. There are even a few videos you can find, which isn’t common and is sometimes discouraged directly by John Darnielle. There’s a compulsion as a fan to want to see everything, but also it’s understandable that John Darnielle wants to keep some mystique. In most cases, I’d suggest live versions of songs as John Darnielle is an incredible performer and you owe it to yourself to witness how consistently he goes for broke. “Sinaloan Milk Snake Song” is a rare case where I have to side with the album.

The Bright Mountain Choir is four people, including former bassist Rachel Ware, who performed backing vocals on a lot of early Mountain Goats albums. They may never be better represented than “Sinaloan Milk Snake Song.” The chorus mixes John Darnielle’s drone with their harmony to create a much different vibe than most other songs from the period. Different members of the Choir jump in and out with fluttering sounds, sometimes hitting the words and sometimes not, and it feels panicked in a deliberate way. It’s reductive to say “you have to hear it” but you really do, in this case, have to hear it.

“I’ve got a message for you // but you’re gonna have to come and get it” is a threat, most likely, and “ever since I came here // all I could think about is water” is an extremely John Darnielle thing to say. The lyrics are something, but it’s really the Choir that sells this one. John Darnielle’s voice cracks in key places and it may not be everyone’s style to view “voice cracks” and “drone” as positives, but this narrator sells us on their situation and it all mixes quite nicely with the harmonies.

257. Orange Ball of Hate

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

We only get one side of the story in “Orange Ball of Hate,” but what we do see tells us enough.

Track: “Orange Ball of Hate”
Album: Zopilote Machine (1994)

There are four “Orange Ball” songs that aren’t connected beyond the title format. All four “fit” within the catalog, but “Orange Ball of Hate” is the closest one to other Mountain Goats songs from the early 90s. Our narrator is in love, in their way, but is also furious with their partner. “I sure do love you” has never felt so sarcastic.

It’s not the most interesting detail in the song, but “Orange Ball of Hate” is one of few Mountain Goats songs to gender either character explicitly. John Darnielle has said that people assume his narrators are male because he is male, but even aside from that detail, most songs don’t list enough detail within the text to assume gender of speaker or audience. Here the narrator reveals their audience through a joke, as they say “one of us, I’m not saying who, has got rocks in her head.” I mention it only because it happens so rarely, I don’t think there’s anything to it other than needing a gender for the joke to work.

The feeling here is less rare. So many narrators occupy this space of a mix of positive and negative feelings towards a partner. John Darnielle has said it’s about the moment that “you know it’s not going to get any better” and most discussions of the song mirror that sentiment. “I sure do love you,” the narrator snarls, again and again, and it cuts worse than being directly hateful. By the end of the third verse, our narrator feels the need to defiantly say that they do know the children’s song the other character is singing, they “just don’t feel like singing it.” This kind of sullen pettiness signals nothing good.

256. Hospital Reaction Shot

Alex Russell Hex of Infinite Binding EP , , , , , ,

The death of Judy Garland and what comes after is one snapshot in “Hospital Reaction Shot.”

Track: “Hospital Reaction Shot”
Album: Hex of Infinite Binding EP (2018)

There are several Mountain Goats songs about Judy Garland, often more directly so than songs about other figures. Without context you might not be able to pick this one out, but John Darnielle released album notes that describe “Hospital Reaction Shot” as “drawn from a picture of Mickey Deans holding a press conference to inform the world of the death of Judy Garland, to whom he had been married for three months.”

Hex of Infinite Binding is one of a handful of EPs released in the last few years, at the time of this writing. Most of the albums have accompanying singles, but now the band is also releasing a relative flood of one-off EPs. I don’t know if this is a common sentiment among fans, but I never seem to digest these EPs as fully as the albums. I haven’t spent as much time with Hex of Infinite Binding as I have with the other recent material, but “Hospital Reaction Shot” feels especially distant.

Despite the traditional subject matter, it’s really not a traditional Mountain Goats song. There’s a brief instrumental bridge, which is just about unheard of in a Mountain Goats song. John Darnielle’s vocal delivery is deliberately thin, with a distant effect as though he’s Mickey Deans himself, overcome in the moment and not sure how to tell the world. I can’t find the specific photo the song references, but I don’t think you need to see it in place of that delivery. In other songs we hear about the terrible influences and the struggle Judy Garland faced, but in the reaction shot, we just need to consider the moment it all goes away.

255. Nova Scotia

Alex Russell Letter From Belgium , , , , ,

With a haunting vocal effect, John Darnielle shows us someone very far out on their own in “Nova Scotia.”

Track: “Nova Scotia”
Album: Letter From Belgium (2004)

There are three songs on Letter From Belgium, the second single from We Shall All Be Healed. The title track sees the cast of addicts from the main album collecting disparate items and holing up in their own version of quarantine. The final track, “Attention All Pickpockets,” serves as connective tissue between this period and The Sunset Tree. Both are significant songs, and of all the non-album tracks, I think “Attention All Pickpockets” is among the best.

As far as I can tell, even in the usual resources, no one has said anything about the song between the two on Letter From Belgium. “Nova Scotia” is an oddity in that respect, but it’s also just a strange song. The effect placed on John Darnielle’s voice leaves the narrator sounding distant, like we’re hearing them over radio transmission. The percussion comes in with a thudding, plodding effect that mimics walking through snow. There’s more than a full minute of outro after the second verse, which leaves us with a lot of time to ponder the final words this character says.

The second verse is worth quoting directly. “Listen,” they tell us, “everything I love I will devour // and bury the bones down in the snow.” Even if it weren’t on Letter From Belgium this would help us place this one. It calls to mind the narrator from “All Up the Seething Coast,” who similarly tells us to stop trying to rely on hope. There is no happy ending coming for the person who wants to just “let me go, let me go” in “Nova Scotia.” The choice to lead this into “Attention All Pickpockets,” where the characters have false hope, makes that realization especially bleak.

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.