music

137. Resonant Bell World

Alex Russell Beautiful Rat Sunset , , , , , , ,

 

A narrator confronts someone about their animal tendencies in “Resonant Bell World.”

Track: “Resonant Bell World”
Album: Beautiful Rat Sunset (1994)

The liner notes for Beautiful Rat Sunset contain a story about Agamemnon, multiple odes to coffee, and a surprisingly straightforward description of the cover. The songs weave through the days of the Aztecs, ancient Italy, modern Peru, and Maryland. It’s tough to pin down a connection, despite a vague sense of discomfort around location that characters seem to keep experiencing. The whole thing closes with “Resonant Bell World,” which doesn’t mention location at all.

The narrator in “Resonant Bell World” describes the animals someone else embodies. They call them a starling, which is a gentle creature, but then a kite (presumably the bird of prey and not the toy) and a hyena. “You’re a stray dog at night” could mean many things, but it’s assuredly negative.

The animal comparisons make up most of the song, but John Darnielle closes with multiple repetitions of “in the starlight.” It’s hypnotic and might not mean anything. It does allow for time to imagine this scene. The narrator is frustrated, or angry, or sad, or disappointed, and in a song like this there’s enough room for them to be all four. Some Mountain Goats songs are so short that you have to fill in the gaps in story yourself. “Resonant Bell World” suggests a narrator with narrowed eyes and a slight buzz. They’re tired of someone else and they want to finally say what’s on their mind. Your vision may be slightly different, but the “you made your special lunge for my throat // and between you and me // it was really exciting” verse will shift accordingly. Maybe that’s funny to you and maybe it’s dire. John Darnielle stops playing as he sings it, which is rare, and you will be forced to feel whatever emotion you connect with the narrator in that moment.

136. First Few Desperate Hours

Alex Russell Tallahassee , , , , , ,

The nervous Alpha Couple pretends it will be okay for the last time in “First Few Desperate Hours.”

Track: “First Few Desperate Hours”
Album: Tallahassee (2002)

Tallahassee is the story of the final days of The Alpha Couple, the recently married, miserable, excited, drunken disaster couple that weaves through the Mountain Goats catalog like connective tissue. They are in dozens of songs, but Tallahassee tells of their marriage and attempt to solidify it by moving from Nevada to a run-down house in Florida. It won’t save them. We know that and they know that, but it’s more about the attempt than the possibility of success.

When John Darnielle introduces songs from Tallahassee he talks about how this was never going to work. The couple even knows that, which makes the nervous energy in “First Few Desperate Hours” less hopeful and more cringe-inducing. The Alphas move their things into their new home and they exude fake hope. Their spirits “sag like withering flowers” and “there’s a stomach-churning shift in the way the land lies.” The couple is only two songs into their album and they’ve already totally given up. There will be other attempts in “Game Shows Touch Our Lives” and “Old College Try” but this is the final time that they can pretend it isn’t all tinged with dread.

The emotions here are clear, but the geography is murky. The “bad luck comes in from Tampa” lines throw a wrench in the story that the couple drove from Vegas to their new home, but you shouldn’t think about it too hard. The Tallahassee in this album is an anti-Shangri-La where everything is terrible and should not be confused for the real capital city of Florida. Tampa is far south of Tallahassee, though it’s entirely possible to imagine that the couple wandered deep into Florida and had to double back to their final resting place. That adds an even sadder element to their cross country drive.

135. Last Man on Earth

Alex Russell Heretic Pride , , , , , , , ,

The deceptively sweet “Last Man on Earth” plants some fears about your partner for the end of the world.

Track: “Last Man on Earth”
Album: Heretic Pride (2008)

“Last Man on Earth” plays with the idea of the old “I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on Earth” threat. The phrase is too common to have just one origin, but we all get that it represents someone expressing the most severe idea they can imagine. Even if confronted with perpetual solitude, they’d rather have nothing than have you. It’s evocative, but it’s also got a finality to it. How could you argue with that?

In this bonus track from the Amazon version of Heretic Pride, John Darnielle imagines how that would really play out. It’s the apocalypse, with “charred debris” and “thirsting demons,” and there may only be two people left. The imagery suggests a ruined world full of dead former friends and lovers, but “Last Man on Earth” has an overwhelmingly bouncy, happy tune. It’s a mixture of ideas John Darnielle might have crafted as a funny song several decades ago, but in 2008 he combines the two pieces to show us a kind of hopefulness. The narrator is determined to prove himself and to earn this love and to make the best of the worst situation.

The final verse deserves some additional discussion. Through the lines “I may have failed you once before // but this right here this means war” we find out that these two have a history. Below the sweet surface lies the suggestion that this isn’t a great outcome for the recipient of this song. The narrator bleeds and drools and has a “crazed look in his eyes.” They clearly imagine themselves as an action hero saving a helpless figure, but that kind of attitude might just be why this person lost interest in them in the first place.

 

134. Born Ready

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

The curious “Born Ready” describes someone on a mission that is having second thoughts.

Track: “Born Ready”
Album: Isopanisad Radio Hour (2000)

US 101 is a highway in California. It’s a beautiful part of the world and it’s one of the best drives in the country. Apparently northern California prefers to call it “101” and southern California calls it “the 101.” A minor difference, but regionalisms can be everything and it tells us we’re dealing with an outsider on a drive to San Jose.

The charm of “Born Ready” is the contrast. It’s a quiet song that’s beautiful at times with soft drums and almost whispered vocals. Even during the flourish at the end you still might miss what’s happening if you just passively listen to it the first few times. Closer listens reveal the story of someone who has been out east in the snow and now they’re here for a dark purpose.

It may be literal and it may not. It’s not unheard of for Mountain Goats characters to wish evil on each other and mean it emotionally rather than physically, but “I’m going to take you out for good // I’m going to take you down” is rather insistent. The emotional whine in John Darnielle’s voice over the third verse gives us our final clue about this relationship. There’s pain in his voice during “When I think about you, I feel so bad // it’s been a long, long, long, long time.” As so often happens in Mountain Goats songs, there isn’t enough information here for the whole story. All we know is that this person is headed into enemy territory and they feel a great purpose, but maybe they feel something entirely different at the same time. “Born Ready” can serve many moods that way, and that makes it a track worth coming back to again and again.

133. Running Away with What Freud Said

Alex Russell Taboo VI: The Homecoming , , , , , , ,

 

“Running Away with What Freud Said” is the first song on the first album and sets up much of what came next.

Track: “Running Away with What Freud Said”
Album: Taboo VI: The Homecoming (1992)

There are four live versions of “Running Away with What Freud Said” online in the Internet Archive. All four are in San Francisco and all four are excellent. If you’ve never spent much time with live Mountain Goats shows, start with shows in California. John Darnielle’s always at his best in California.

I tell you that because you may not want to dive straight into Taboo VI: The Homecoming. “Running Away with What Freud Said” is the first song on the first album and it definitely sounds like it. The recording is rough, with some washed out noises and odd samples mixed in during awkward times. It’s the kind of album you can only love once you love all of the other ones. John Darnielle has consistently said that the first album isn’t great, but it’s a fascinating piece of the band’s history.

You should check out those live versions to get a real appreciation of this song. The album version is pretty catchy, but Darnielle’s voice isn’t yet the force that it became as he developed. Live, he screams something more into the character’s seeming madness and really elevates it.

“Going to Alaska” is the standout, but “Running Away with What Freud Said” works. The narrator wanders around Portland and recovers from a blackout. John Darnielle says the song is about a time he lost several days in his Portland apartment and the time that immediately followed. It’s fitting that his whole career opens with a person, in Portland, who isn’t quite themselves. You’ve got all the pieces there to construct hundreds of songs that followed.

132. New Britain

Alex Russell Full Force Galesburg , , , , , ,

“New Britain” opens Full Force Galesburg with a furious panic and a look at someone desperate.

Track: “New Britain”
Album: Full Force Galesburg (1997)

“New Britain” has only been played live a few times. It’s a very typical Mountain Goats song: two lovers have a discussion about their shared reality and tenuous connection to sanity. Honestly, that might sum up the whole damn album Full Force Galesburg. At a live show in New York in 2008, John Darnielle explained the absence through a story about a music video.

Some people got in touch with him and asked if they could make a music video for “New Britain.” He was flattered, so he told them to go ahead with it and it make whatever they wanted to make. He says that he liked the final product, but he thought the lead actor’s haircut was terrible. Now many years removed, he says he still thinks about that and hopes they didn’t take it too hard, but it seems to have damaged the song for him. At that show in 2008 he mentioned that he didn’t think he’d ever played it live again, and it’s only come up one more time after that. It’s a fun song, and what a weird way to have it become more than it is.

On the album version, John Darnielle’s voice cracks and he imbues the character with some desperation. Most of Full Force Galesburg feels erratic on purpose, so it’s fitting that the opening track contains lines like “you’re about to leave again // I’ve learned to read your movements // and I’m learning how to read your mind.” These people are going through something together, as many Mountain Goats characters are, but they’re doing worse than most of them. “New Britain” sets us up to realize that maybe we don’t need to try to sympathize with them.

131. Foreign Object

Alex Russell Beat the Champ , , , , , , , , ,

“Foreign Object” is a “funny” song that shows how John Darnielle has grown up from the time when he wrote “funny songs.”

Track: “Foreign Object”
Album: Beat the Champ (2015)

“Foreign Object” is not, at first, a challenging song. It’s literally about a guy with a foreign object. John Darnielle makes light of it at live shows by talking about how obvious it is and how the song is exactly what you think. All of Beat the Champ talks about wrestling, but “Foreign Object” takes the subject matter and lives in it completely.

Our narrator is angry and trying to stir up some anger in his opponent. Bravado is central to professional wrestling and our hero here wants his opponent to know they’re going to come at them with something fierce, outside the rules, and violent. They mention an “astrolabe” which wouldn’t work very well in a fight, but it conjures up an image. The aim here is to get under your opponent’s skin and to incite the crowd, and what better than ancient, bizarre tools and threats to bite someone’s flesh?

John Darnielle wrote “funny” songs for years and sometimes talks about how he doesn’t want to be the “funny song guy” anymore. “The Monkey Song” and “The Anglo-Saxons” don’t make sense at a show where you might look deep inside your soul and consider “Wild Sage” and “In Corolla,” so it makes sense why he wants to escape his former self. However, “Foreign Object” stands proud on Beat the Champ as testimony to the fact that the man can still write something silly. The bebop chorus of excited “bap bap bap!” noises after a verse about maiming a man only makes sense on a Mountain Goats record, but it’s a fine example of how the band can express multiple ideas but still have a core identity.

130. We Have Seen the Enemy

Alex Russell Zopilote Machine , , , , , , ,

Wild dogs spoil what might have been a peaceful moment in “We Have Seen the Enemy” as two people struggle to be honest.

Track: “We Have Seen the Enemy”
Album: Zopilote Machine (1994)

“We Have Seen the Enemy” opens with nearly 20 full seconds of peaceful guitar. There’s no indication of what kind of song this might be or how you’re supposed to feel. It’s soothing, in a way, and you don’t get a lot of that in the catalog. You begin to wonder if a character or two is about to get some relief.

John Darnielle’s first verse doesn’t break the spell. He describes a discussion where one person comes clean to another one. “I’ve told you everything,” they say, “even the parts I’d meant to leave out.” Given what we know about a Mountain Goats song, you could assume this is ominous. You could also see it as sweet. Darnielle speak-sings the entire verse. There’s a gentleness in his voice that suggests this is a moment of true honesty between these two.

Then wild dogs descend from the mountains and ruin the moment. The delivery of the final four lines is grating, no doubt, but it’s supposed to feel that way. It’s designed to be a pleasant moment spoiled by a rough image, and that’s exactly what happens. There are only 70 words in “We Have Seen the Enemy,” but the minimalism makes you wonder about what’s happening and will drive you to listen to it again and again.

The title is the only clue. Oliver Hazard Perry once said “we have met the enemy and they are ours” after a naval victory in the War of 1812 and the quote was parodied by the comic strip Pogo in the 50s as “we have met the enemy and he is us.” Many of John Darnielle’s couples start at the first emotion, but by the time the wild dogs show up they have to feel the second one is more appropriate.

129. Genesis 19:1-2

Alex Russell Devil in the Shortwave , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

A dramatic showdown with angels, a mob, and a desperate person becomes a loud 95 seconds in “Genesis 19:1-2.”

Track: “Genesis 19:1-2”
Album: Devil in the Shortwave (2002)

Not much sounds like “Genesis 19:1-2” in the catalog. Darnielle yells the entire song like he’s competing with the guitar and has no control over how loud either of them sounds. It’s intense and it’s frantic but above everything else it’s just plain damn loud. It calls to mind songs like “Store” that are amazing experiences by themselves but don’t fit into a night where John Darnielle has to protect his voice and sing 25 other songs.

Devil in the Shortwave is a weird collection of five songs. There’s a cover and the very quiet “Yoga,” but the other three are all short explosions. “Crows” and “Commandante” have furious vocals, but the guitar supports those songs. On “Genesis 19:1-2” it drowns the vocals and makes the song almost scary. It’s only a minute and a half, but you can’t escape the sense that something really serious and bad is happening here.

The title comes from the moment just before God destroys Sodom. Lot invites two angels into his home and tries to pacify an angry mob. He asks them to stand down and to respect the angels, but the mob will not be soothed. Then they are all killed and Lot leaves with his wife, who is punished for a separate sin. The song includes a line directly from the Bible (“The two angels came to Sodom in the evening”) but otherwise just offers possible clues. The cast of characters in the first verse may be the mob, set apart by specifics like “the girl who’d been haunting your dreams all your life.” By the second verse, Lot is leaving and his wife has her things with her. Like many good Mountain Goats songs, we know this isn’t going to end well, even if no one else does.

128. The Admonishing Song

Alex Russell Ghana , , , , , , , ,

 

“The Admonishing Song” exists largely for one weird line, but it offers a glimpse at a very strange argument.

Track: “The Admonishing Song”
Album: Ghana (1999)

“The Admonishing Song” was originally released on a compilation called Corkscrewed by Theme Park Records in 1995. The company either doesn’t exist anymore or has changed their name to be more Google-friendly, as now they are buried under pages of actual records set at or by theme parks. It exists on Ghana as one of the “funny” songs like “Golden Boy” or “The Anglo-Saxons.”

In the liner notes on Ghana, John Darnielle supplies explanatory notes for many of the songs. For “Flight 717: Going to Denmark” and “The Admonishing Song” he says that he was tricked by a “tongueless horde” of unspeakable beasts and that both songs are actually hiding a delicious salad dressing recipe in their digital code. Darnielle often distances himself from the early “funny” songs, but his sense of humor still shines through more than two decades after “The Admonishing Song.” There is more going on in “Foreign Object,” but John Darnielle still loves a joke.

In 1995 he was willing to go a much longer way for a joke. The chorus of “The Admonishing Song” sees the narrator wailing versions of “tell me why // you lied” again and again. They literally admonish the person they’re speaking to by telling them over and over that it was “not a nice thing to do.” The payoff is the bitter “tell me why you made threats against the life of the Prime Minister of Canada.” It’s a weird song, even in an era with the occasional weird song, but the line is memorable. You can choose to imagine the conversation these characters had before that line or you can just enjoy the strangeness. For me, that line is enough to make me wonder about these characters even though “The Admonishing Song” offers nothing else to go on.