music

192. Going to Bangor

Alex Russell Bitter Melon Farm , , , , , , ,

 

Through a striking (but strange) image, we see two people struggling to communicate in “Going to Bangor.”

Track: “Going to Bangor”
Album: Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

In the liner notes for Bitter Melon Farm, John Darnielle talks about the emotion he hoped to stir up after playing “Going to Bangor” in Holland:

“I had envisioned romantic young Dutch men and women taking to the streets, pulling the old men away from their chess games and forming them into minor league baseball clubs with names like the Dordrecht Wild Ferns or the Ooij Interminable Dysfunctional Relationships.”

He makes a joke after that about it not having that impact. In the usual sources, that remains the full commentary on “Going to Bangor” both from fans and from John Darnielle himself. That’s not uncommon with the early songs, but it’s interesting in this case because it can be interpreted as a judgment on elements of the song. Certainly there are better Mountain Goats songs about “interminable dysfunctional relationships,” but “Going to Bangor” is a worthy entry to the catalog. It belongs in a category with so many other songs about shocking, mysterious imagery. The first verse concludes with “all the signs // are easy to read,” but is that true of a line about wild ferns growing?

There’s a lot to potentially unpack in “Going to Bangor,” but it seems likely that it’s not supposed to be figured out. The second verse is dominated by one character approaching the narrator with a mouth full of cranberries. They drip juice out of their mouth and we view this scene through the eyes of the narrator, who tells us they feel lied to and doubt their partner. It’s rarely this weird, but this is emotionally common ground for the Goats. You can certainly picture people forming baseball teams around it now, even if you couldn’t then.

191. Sail Babylon Springs

Alex Russell Babylon Springs EP , , , , , , ,

The rivers of Babylon may or may not help two desperate people in “Sail Babylon Springs.”

Track: “Sail Babylon Springs”
Album: Babylon Springs EP (2006)

Babylon Springs EP is a truly great record. The only review on the album’s Wikipedia page rates it as a “C+” from a publication whose site redirects now. I would be curious to read that middling review, because an album with “Alibi,” “Ox Baker Triumphant,” and “Wait For You,” commands your attention. It crosses all of the tempos and the moods that John Darnielle and company have to offer.

Directly after the explosive, speedy ode to infidelity’s fun parts “Alibi,” the quiet “Sail Babylon Springs” slows down. We might be in so many other Mountain Goats songs. The narrator stays away from a loved one in the basement (“Prana Ferox”) and they set up a conflict where one waits outside their home in the middle of a grand gesture (“Going to Scotland”). These seem like basic ideas, but it’s easy to draw the connections.

We don’t actually learn much about what’s happening here, but that helps us insert ourselves. “A little too proud // to let the matter drop” could be anything. The second verse closes with the narrator pleading for resolution. “You stand at your window looking down // jump if you want to jump,” they say, but John Darnielle’s voice rises as he repeats “jump if you want to” and we wonder if they actually might.

Babylon is so often a stand-in for something that used to be great but no longer exists. Its use here is as an idyllic source of water that is whatever you need. It’s cool in the first verse when it’s drinking water and it’s warm by the end as a place to swim. Our only hint here about if these springs are actually a cure is the last line, where the narrator says they are swimming “blindly along // through the rivers of Babylon.”

190. Steal Smoked Fish

Alex Russell Steal Smoked Fish, Transcendental Youth , , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle offers some advice for his former compatriots in Portland in “Steal Smoked Fish.”

Track: “Steal Smoked Fish”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012) and Steal Smoked Fish (2012)

If you’ve been to Portland, you know the Burnside Bridge. “Steal Smoked Fish” follows some of John Darnielle’s younger accomplices as they cross the bridge, see the iconic “White Stag” sign (before it was bought by the city and rewritten to say “Portland, Oregon”), and raid a convenience store. In another song, “two on point, and two on sentry” at the Plaid Pantry might be a metaphor, but here it’s more likely a literal plan of attack.

There are dozens of songs and multiple albums about John Darnielle’s time in Portland. He’s on the record over and over again about the mistakes of his youth, but “Steal Smoked Fish” allows him to return to those days as an omniscient narrator. In this bonus track from Transcendental Youth, the drug addicts and thieves of Portland “feast when you can // and dream when there’s nothing to feast on.” With perspective, we know this is a way to make it through tough times, but it’s tough to sustain that way in the moment.

Even with a reference to “the joys that the lesser days bring,” this still isn’t a song about good times. The days are lesser not just because you’re older now, but because the points of importance were so petty. You can feel Darnielle’s narrator whispering advice to these characters that they won’t take, but there’s still hope. It’s an interesting duality between memories of those times and hope that characters won’t stay in them in places like “disappear in a cloud of dust // but spare a thought for what it covers up.”

Ultimately, these characters are too far gone. John Darnielle introduces the song live as being about ghosts, but it’s still a story of who they were and both what they did and might have done.

189. Tape Travel is Lonely

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

John Darnielle explores the dark side of ignoring your problems in “Tape Travel is Lonely.”

Track: “Tape Travel is Lonely”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2013 reissue)

There are a few things to unpack here before we even tackle the song itself. The title of “Tape Travel is Lonely” is a reference to the 2001 John Vanderslice album Time Travel is Lonely. That album is heartbreaking, especially during the title track as Vanderslice’s fictional brother tells the story of his descent into madness in Antarctica.

“Tape Travel is Lonely” is one of the previously unreleased tracks that made it onto the 2013 reissue of All Hail West Texas, and John Darnielle reveals in the liner notes that this one was cut because it ended abruptly while he was recording and he never went back to it. He doesn’t outright say it should have made the album, but he suggests it. It’s possible that the title stems from the process of digging back through old material and picturing who you were when you created the originals. Darnielle says this one didn’t have a title, so you can picture him listening to this song and appreciating the feeling his producer and collaborator Vanderslice imagined for his character in Antarctica.

The song itself is a lot of scene setting, even for the Mountain Goats. We see a “party” that’s all homegrown vegetables and sweet wine on the porch. In most songs, these would be idyllic images and we’d picture a nice night spent with friends in the country. Darnielle hammers the guitar and holds on the last word in lyrics like “the tensions build // air currents throb” to let us know this is not that kind of scene. It’s a fiercer version of “Fault Lines,” in a way, as the narrator’s building anxiety and growing drunkenness peak with a plea for the mosquitoes to suck the remaining blood from his body.

188. Cao Dai Blowout

Alex Russell New Asian Cinema , , , , , , ,

“Cao Dai Blowout” is a ghost story that’s hiding a larger lesson about processing complicated feelings.

Track: “Cao Dai Blowout”
Album: New Asian Cinema (1998)

“Cao Dai Blowout” is about one narrator processing their father’s memory. They refer to a ghost that destroys all in its path, from street lights to simple items in the narrator’s home. The song builds with with guitar, banjo, and keyboard. The result is an effective rising as the narrator escalates descriptions of the ghost. “When the ghost of your father comes to town,” they moan, “what the hell else can you do?”

The payoff is a rejection of religious assistance (“when the priest came to call I sent him on his way”) and a surprising resolution. Many Mountain Goats songs build to a decision and veer off just before the climax, which allows us to wonder what specific problems narrators have and how we might feel about their actions. “Cao Dai Blowout” shows us a narrator that asks what can be done when overwhelmed with the presence of a dead parent and goes so far as to answer the question: “I let him set up shop.”

Caodaism is a Vietnamese religion that believes in an ultimate resolution where humanity and the divine will be as one. Supposedly, many prophets (including holy figures in most other world religions) have tried to tell us of this eventual moment, but we cannot yet perceive of this perfection. According to Caodaism, we will all reincarnate again and again until we are each ready to understand this and transcend.

The connection here to this song’s title is unclear to me, but it does draw to mind the smaller scale way we relate to our mothers and fathers. We will all be faced, eventually, with the decision of how to process their existence. John Darnielle offers up a solution to absorb all of it rather than fight, as this moment will happen until you do.

187. Sarcofago Live

Alex Russell Satanic Messiah , , , , , , , ,

“Sarcofago Live” gets to the heart of what matters to a fan and how other things fall away.

Track: “Sarcofago Live”
Album: Satanic Messiah (2008)

You don’t have to like everything that your heroes like. John Darnielle loves boxing, metal, and Amy Grant. It is possible to love the music of John Darnielle without loving any of these things. I do not love any of those things, especially. I’m not against them, they just aren’t holy to me.

“Sarcofago Live” is a song about a Brazilian metal band called Sarcofago. Wikipedia defines them as an “extreme metal” band. All of their members have outrageous pseudonyms. There is an extended description of their first album cover and the designer who balked at putting a crown of thorns on it. They clearly earn their “extreme” descriptor.

I have never heard a Sarcofago song. I don’t think it’s crucial to hear one to understand this song. I’ve never seen Pinklon Thomas box, but I love “Pinklon.” I eventually saw the movie detailed in “The Lady from Shanghai” but the song didn’t change for me after seeing it. One requires many reference materials (a Bible chief among them) to get all of the references in a Mountain Goats song, but it doesn’t always change the impact.

“Sarcofago Live” finds characters who want to take part in the only thing that matters to them at the end of the proverbial rope. They are in a “concrete room” and they are waiting. They need no food. They need no task. They just need Sarcofago. I am confident that it is good music, for the people who need it. Nothing is purely good or bad, it is what it is for people who find it and need it. There may be no more meta interpretation of a Mountain Goats song, but what fan doesn’t know what it means to wait for the only thing worth waiting for?

185. Million

Alex Russell Nothing for Juice , , , , , , ,

Never has a person bringing a blanket home seemed more sinister than in “Million.”

Track: “Million”
Album: Nothing for Juice (1996)

Iowa shows up from time to time in John Darnielle’s world. His second novel, Universal Harvester, considers the darker and stranger elements of what happens in a quiet, small community in the state. John Darnielle loves the idea of places many people either think they know but don’t or don’t even think they know. Whichever Iowa is for you, live show banter will help fill in the idea of places like Colo, Iowa, where so many of the mid-90s Mountain Goats songs were born.

“Million” opens with Finland, which couldn’t be further from Iowa, as our narrator returns home to the Midwest with a blanket. One person brings an Iowan a blanket from Finland in a quick song on Nothing for Juice that’s nestled between songs about addiction and madness. It’s a simple idea, but it’s deepened by the hard strums and the wavering delivery.

“The moon is high over Iowa at night,” John Darnielle repeats. This would generally be a description of something pleasant, but here it’s some kind of threat. The narrator notices “questions only a masochist would ask” in their lover’s “big brown eyes,” which is another odd confluence. We’re in picturesque country with description of flowers and moonlight and one character has traditionally positive features but there’s a sense that something worse is coming. “Million” feels creepy without being specific about what’s afoot, but don’t try to tell yourself it’s nothing as you listen to the final voice crack over “Iowa at night.”

184. Then the Letting Go

Alex Russell Nothing for Juice , , , , , , ,

 

“Then the Letting Go” opens Nothing for Juice with one look and little time to contemplate what we see.

Track: “Then the Letting Go”
Album: Nothing for Juice (1996)

“This is the hour of lead 
Remembered if outlived, 
As freezing persons recollect the snow – 
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.” – Emily Dickinson

With whisper-quiet songs like “Waving at You” and “It Froze Me,” Nothing for Juice is a unique album. It does end up stomping and screaming in “Going to Scotland,” but it opens in New York with “Then the Letting Go.” The title comes from the final line of the an Emily Dickinson poem about dealing with difficult emotions. The poem reflects on how one’s heart feels and how the effects of pain can linger before concluding with a grim image. There is a hopeful way to view it, sure, but it seems more likely that your final act is to “let go” in this context.

It seems like an odd choice for an opener. John Darnielle and Rachel Ware harmonize well and it’s one of the stronger songs on the album as a result, but it feels very brief. The song opens with “Down home in the South Bronx // down home” and “Saw you walking down the street again // saw you looking sweet again,” both lines that repeat the same ideas and expand them only slightly. The changes are small, but they add depth. It closes in similar fashion, with one head turn from the narrator and four questions that start with “why.” Many Mountain Goats songs are smaller collections of images, but few of them are just one look. We get just this one image of a narrator looking at a lover, a friend, or death itself, and then we’re gone.

183. Star Dusting

Alex Russell Bitter Melon Farm, Transmissions to Horace , , , , , , , , ,

In a casino in old Las Vegas, the Alpha Couple tries and fails to communicate.

Track: “Star Dusting”
Album: Transmissions to Horace (1993) and Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

The Stardust Resort and Casino stood in Las Vegas for decades. You probably would recognize the sign, it’s one of the iconic pieces of Vegas that you know even if you haven’t been there. The place isn’t around anymore; a company says they’re building a new Chinese-themed resort in a few years. The Wikipedia article for it is not well policed. One mundane fact includes ten separate citations, most of which are personal YouTube videos with memories and slideshows. The article is extremely long and includes a ton of asides and rambling details, all of which create an endearing sense of the love people felt for this defunct casino.

“Star Dusting” borrows the resort’s name and shows us an early day in the Alpha Couple’s lives. One mumbles at another and they attempt to communicate. It all breaks down as one perceives the sound of bells ringing out from the other’s throat. “I thought I heard bells ringing // But then I remembered that I no longer knew what bells sounded like” is pure John Darnielle, with a very confusing image crammed into two lines. The song lazes along over slow guitar and the droning delivery of a drunken evening in Las Vegas. These two have spent a year in this place and it’s definitely not going to get any better any time soon. John Darnielle opens the song by stating the date and saying “this is a horror story,” and you can feel the tension build. It all won’t pay off in explosion for over a decade, but the anger of “No Children” is already there.

182. This Year

Alex Russell The Sunset Tree , , , , , , , ,

“This Year” is a song for every feeling, good or bad, and serves as a perfect New Year’s Eve anthem.

Track: “This Year”
Album: The Sunset Tree (2005)

Where to start for a song about new beginnings? “This Year” is arguably the most popular song John Darnielle’s ever written. It gets played at almost every show and is a bonding experience like no other track. The whole crowd will yell the “hail Satan” or “I hope we both die” lines, sure, but people lose their mind for the chorus of “This Year.” It’s a time to think about either the moments this year that make the song relevant for you or the moments next year that will blow those all away.

It’s positive and negative, which is fitting for a John Darnielle song. Teenage John Darnielle plays video games, drives recklessly, and drinks to avoid the miserable elements of his life. He rebels, above all else, and finds some forward progress through that rebellion. “Lion’s Teeth” is angrier, but what is more triumphant? Nothing, which earns “This Year” a spot in every single fan’s top five.

In recent years, John Darnielle has started posting on Twitter on New Year’s Eve to express his gratitude and his hope that the message of “This Year” endures. This year, he mentioned how the chorus was a placeholder that Peter Hughes told him to keep. It’s simple: “I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.” No matter what kind of year you’ve had, as you look back on it, keep going. That’s the message of the Mountain Goats and it’s as good a piece of advice as you’re ever going to get.