music

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.

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.