music

059. Going to Spain

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

John Darnielle calls “Going to Spain” one of the saddest songs he’s ever written, and he sells it with a pained delivery.

Track: “Going to Spain”
Album: The Hound Chronicles (1992)

There are “early” songs and then there’s The Hound Chronicles. There’s officially an album before it, but The Hound Chronicles feels like the first real complete release. Songs like “The Garden Song” and “Going to Chino” are perfect bridges between what the original sound of the Mountain Goats was and the themes that the band still loves to explore. There’s always room for the weirdest of the early songs, but it’s in the ones that would still sound reasonable now (cleaned up a little, of course) that you can hear the eternal John Darnielle. From “Going to Alaska” on the first album to Beat the Champ‘s opener “Southwestern Territory,” Darnielle’s interest in the downtrodden has never waned.

“Going to Spain” is a little more on-the-nose than the material on Get Lonely, the modern breakup album, but not by much. “You’re gonna leave me now // but I don’t care” and “go on and leave me // I don’t care anymore” are classic boasts from a hurt lover, but they hit even harder here because Darnielle delivers them full of pain rather than anger. It’s a narrator that’s trying to act tough, not someone trying to wound their partner. “I see you hold his hand // I see you wave goodbye” is sad, but “I don’t know you anymore // so I’m not going to cry now” is even sadder because it’s a lie.

With the rest of the catalog the way it is, it would be possible to wonder what this person has done to deserve this fate. With no judgement offered in the song either way, it’s not possible for us to attribute blame. That keeps this song one of the saddest in the collection, and you can feel it in how hard Darnielle tries to keep it together when he plays it.

058. Teenage World

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

In “Teenage World,” the narrator is baffled by a present from someone they’re clearly fed up with in other ways.

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

At a show in 2014, John Darnielle played every song from Transmissions to Horace and repeatedly referenced it with some self-deprecating commentary. Darnielle mostly walks a line between “the old songs aren’t as good” and “there are people who love these old songs” and the result is that everything gets played, but some of it gets played with a bit of a smile.

During “Teenage World” at that old-school set, Darnielle got one line into the song before he had to ask the crowd for a line. When you have hundreds and hundreds of songs in your catalog, you can be forgiven for not remembering every detail about all of them. I’ve always found it endearing that Darnielle is willing to play songs that he still loves but might not really know anymore. There are stories of fans having to pull up lyrics on their phone to help the band get through particularly obscure moments, but my favorite is a live performance of “Riches and Wonders” where Darnielle forgot a line, only to hear one lone female voice help out with “we are strong!” from the crowd. A Goats show is a unique experience, but a Goats show with older songs is something else entirely.

“Teenage World” is fairly straightforward: the narrator gets a gift of a rabbit and doesn’t know what it’s supposed to signify. They decide to make the best of it and drive the rabbit into the rich part of town while they roll on down the highway pumped up full of recreational ADHD drugs. It’s specific, but that feeling of not understanding your significant other is very relatable. “I’m sick and tired of trying to figure out your gestures?” We’ve all been there.

057. Hatha Hill

Alex Russell Ghana, Orange Raja, Blood Royal , , , , , , , ,

The meaning of “Hatha Hill” will change depending on who you ask, but that ambiguous nature feels intentional.

Track: “Hatha Hill”
Album: Orange Raja, Blood Royal (1995) and Ghana (1999)

There are four songs on Orange Raja, Blood Royal and they really deserve to be listened to as one unit. The singles and EPs are less thematically cohesive than the full length releases, but this one is certainly united in other ways. The droning, eerie “Blood Royal” sets the stage and comes off as especially haunting with guest Alastair Galbraith’s violin. “The Only Thing I Know” is more familiar snarling between lovers, but again Galbraith sets the song apart as unique with harmonica accompaniment. “Raja Vocative” is the standout, with some beautiful violin and true pain in John Darnielle’s vocals and lyrics. Where does that leave the closer “Hatha Hill?”

The shorter songs from the early days can sometimes feel slight in comparison to the explosive fury of “Oceanographer’s Choice” or the scene changes of “The Mess Inside.” People aren’t screaming for “Hatha Hill” when they see the Mountain Goats, but that doesn’t mean it can be glossed over. It deserves attention because of its placement on such a great single, even if “Raja Vocative” is the one that’s endured.

There’s a lot tied up in very few words. “As the sun went away // you were sending out signals” will mean something different to you than it means to me, and John Darnielle’s relatively liberal allowance for “what this song means” in general leaves enough room for everyone to be right. The exact intention of what “sugar” is in this song is almost certainly impossible to derive, but it doesn’t really matter. The lines about sugar exist to get to the ending, which you can read as part of the grand tradition of Mountain Goats narrators being distrustful or you can start the song over and continue to look for specific meaning in what may be an intentionally undecipherable song.

056. It Froze Me

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

“It Froze Me” is one of the few true love songs that doesn’t examine the bad that sometimes follows the good.

Track: “It Froze Me”
Album: Nothing for Juice (1996)

Nothing for Juice has “Going to Scotland” on it, so you would be forgiven for missing that it has an even better love song. John Darnielle is explicit when he introduces “It Froze Me” live. He almost always seems to say — and says this this exactly — “this is a love song.” You don’t get that level of specificity from Darnielle often, and you get that succinct of an answer even less often. He’s a wordsmith and he’s given to lengthy, beautiful descriptions of his work. When he tells you “this is a love song” you have to stand up and take notice.

There doesn’t seem to be much else to consider for “It Froze Me,” but that’s what makes it special. “Going to Scotland” can be taken a dozen ways and every way is “right.” With “It Froze Me,” it’s just one person seeing one other person and being locked in space and time as they consider their connection. In the middle of a career about divorce and destruction there exists one song about which all you can say is “this is a love song.”

As you unfold the catalog and you consider the development of John Darnielle the songwriter alongside the development of John Darnielle the person growing up in the world, you latch on to different elements. Maybe in your low points you think “Waving at You” is your anthem. Maybe in your most solitary you find some hope in “Wild Sage.” Maybe when you’re stricken with guilt you consider what “Cotton” means to other guilt-stricken people. John Darnielle has often said that he hopes his songs are there for you when you need something to sing, and “It Froze Me” is his song for you and yours in the good times.

055. Palmcorder Yajna

Alex Russell Palmcorder Yajna, We Shall All Be Healed , , , , , , ,

“Palmcorder Yajna” may be the most plainly stated Mountain Goats song about the day-to-day of an addict.

Track: “Palmcorder Yajna”
Album: We Shall All Be Healed (2004)

The term “single” is a strange one. For “the song of the Summer” and whatnot it still makes sense, but for a band like the Mountain Goats it mostly strikes me as an interesting bit of trivia. The people that are going to get consumed by an album of songs about tweakers in the Pacific Northwest aren’t going to do it because they heard the single. Sometimes it’s fascinating to find out what the “single” is from an album. That said for some albums, the single from the anti-meth-but-mostly-just-reflective-about-meth We Shall All Be Healed is “Palmcorder Yajna” and it couldn’t really be anything else.

“Letter from Belgium” rocks enough (and was the second single as a result) and “Pigs That Ran Straightaway into the Water, Triumph Of” is fun enough that it was recently played on Late Night with Seth Meyers, but the perfectly sneered vocals and infectious drums of “Palmcorder Yajna” leave no room for dispute. You might call it “fun” the first few times you hear it. The scream of “if anybody comes to see me // tell ’em they just missed me by a minute // if anybody comes into our room while we’re asleep // I hope they incinerate everybody in it” is peak yelling John Darnielle, and it makes this the kind of song even a casual fan can appreciate.

Under the surface, it’s terrifying. The opening lines describe Holt Boulevard, where a younger John Darnielle was told to tell the cops he bought his heroin if he ever got caught, because there were too many dealers for the cops to ever figure out which he meant. The Travelodge of “Palmcorder Yajna” is really the setting for all the terror on the album, and it may be the closest to perspective that Darnielle ever lets his addicts get.

054. Fresh Berries for You

Alex Russell Protein Source of the Future...Now! , , , , , , , ,

 

On one of the strangest and best songs from the early years, John Darnielle invokes the Easter Bunny as a portent.

Track: “Fresh Berries for You”
Album: Chile de Árbol (1993) and Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

At a show in 1999 in Bloomington, Indiana, a man called out for “the Easter Bunny song.” That night in Bloomington included “Cutter,” (which is about being born in Bloomington and is introduced as such) “Letter from a Motel,” “Tampa,” “You’re in Maya,” and “Poltergeist.” It’s one of those holy grail shows you dream of when you read a set list. It’s the kind of show that doesn’t happen anymore because it couldn’t happen anymore. You can still hear “the Easter Bunny song” though, or you could if you went to the show at the Old Town School of Folk Music in 2014 in Chicago.

Sometimes it’s obvious why a song from the early days persists. “Going to Alaska” is from the very first album, but it still gets play at solo John Darnielle shows because it’s fantastic. It’s a great song, but it’s also tonally appropriate alongside the more modern Mountain Goats songs. “Fresh Berries for You” is an entirely different beast. While certainly not common now, it’s the kind of “kinda funny” song that you’d expect to have been swallowed up by history. It’s good that it hasn’t been. It may be the best song on Chile de Árbol (depending on your ability to appreciate what “Going to Malibu” is going for, but that’s a conversation for another day) and it’s one of the most interesting songs from pre-1995.

John Darnielle’s narrator is insistent that the person they’re addressing is in for a treat. “The time is coming,” they repeat, and “it’s gonna be so nice // when the Easter Bunny comes.” Exactly what that means for everyone involved is left deliberately unclear, but it’s a testament to the other narrators of Goats songs that you can’t help but wonder how bad this is going to go.

053. Hebrews 11:40

Alex Russell The Life of the World to Come , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The song “Hebrews 11:40” contrasts with the source of its title by arguing for a more immediate reward after suffering.

Track: “Hebrews 11:40”
Album: The Life of the World to Come (2009)

You have to read all of Hebrews 11 to figure out what’s going on in the final verse. I’m certainly no Biblical scholar, but some of it is very straightforward. It opens with “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” and closes with 11:40. We’re talking about faith as a shield, but a shield for a life that’s coming after this one. The faithful will eventually be rewarded, the chapter says, but they will suffer in this life.

“I’m gonna get my perfect body back someday,” John Darnielle promises in “Hebrews 11:40.” The song really challenges the whole message of The Life of the World to Come fairly directly. The chapter Hebrews 11 is obviously designed to bolster the faithful with assurances that their suffering will not go unnoticed, and it serves to strengthen people who may be experiencing weakness. The song “Hebrews 11:40,” like the rest of the album, is interested in the idea, but not so much the intention of the chapter or the verse. In the Bible, the dead faithful must wait for the rest of the faithful. In the world of the Mountain Goats, sometimes you have to take things into your own hands.

The righteous dead are told to wait for their reward, but John Darnielle says that you should “make your own friends when the world’s gone cold.” The difference is that the chapter tells people that their suffering is sign of better things to come, but the song argues a more active approach. “I feel certain I am going to rise again” is a message they both share, but “Don’t wanna hurt anyone // probably gonna have to, before it’s all done” is Darnielle’s alone.

052. Damn These Vampires

Alex Russell All Eternals Deck , , , , , , ,

 

The character in “Damn These Vampires” blames everyone else for their situation, but also adds to their own problems.

Track: “Damn These Vampires”
Album: All Eternals Deck (2011)

Amazingly, vampires don’t show up very often in Mountain Goats songs. Well, literal vampires don’t, and that’s surprising because they seem like the perfect choice for most of the band’s favorite themes. Characters in Goats songs often struggle with engaging the world and they routinely either drain or are drained by the world in some way. The “God damn these vampires // for what they’ve done to me” of “Damn These Vampires” would make sense to hundreds of narrators in the catalog.

The vampires in this song aren’t literal either, of course, but like the vampires of “Alpha Rat’s Nest” who “suck the dying hours dry,” these leave bite marks. “Damn These Vampires” is part of All Eternals Deck, so it has to fit in the very loose framework of a tarot card. The vampire card is one you’re going to see at some point as a character in a Goats song, but it’s up to you to interpret if it means you’re being bitten or if you’re doing the biting. That’s true in the start, but the full circle of “vampirism” is that once you’re bitten, you start biting others.

The narrator of “Damn These Vampires” blames others for their addictions, but they’re certainly complicit in them. They continually insist that something’s been done to them, but once you have the disease it matters more about how you live with it. “Someday we’ll try to walk upright,” they tell themselves and the other vampires, and they offer the most hopeful thought of all with “someday we won’t remember this.” In the meantime, they’ll all just keep adding to their ranks as they “sleep like dead men // wake up like dead men.”

051. US Mill

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

“US Mill” features both the Mountain Goats’ obsession with location and an intriguing vagueness.

Track: “US Mill”
Album: Full Force Galesburg (1997)

Location is obviously important to the Mountain Goats, but Full Force Galesburg challenges what “location” really means. “Minnesota” may or may not happen in Minnesota. “Down Here” talks about Australia, but likely not for any particular reason. For both of those, it’s more about specificity as a concept than it is the actual, specific place. The standout “Weekend in Western Illinois” and the album-closing “It’s All Here in Brownsville” both talk about border towns, and John Darnielle has said that they’re linked for that reason. The concept of living somewhere between two things and not really feeling right in either of them is instantly relatable, be it two places or two feelings.

A song like “US Mill” takes that concept even further, since it’s nothing but locations. The first four lines, “Way up north // Down the road a little // Back in New England // Right here in the middle,” are just four descriptive phrases that help you imagine a location in general, but they don’t really tell you where you are. The rest could function as a starting point for a Mountain Goats phrasebook. “Listening for the old sound” and “bright as gold” show up often enough in other songs that they feel like familiar descriptions here. There’s no crime in reusing phrases, and in fact they make what sounds like a straightforward song feel like a bigger part of the catalog.

The strumming is impossible to resist, and you’ll find yourself snapping along with it after a few listens. It’s a fitting tune for a high point. They are hopeful and they are listening, but we know from the rest of Full Force Galesburg (if these are the same people as the couple in “Minnesota” or “Chinese House Flowers” especially) that they should enjoy it while it lasts.

050. Satanic Messiah

Alex Russell Satanic Messiah , , , , , ,

“Satanic Messiah” isn’t about Obama, but the fact that anyone thinks it is prompts a larger discussion of song meanings.

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

It can seem impossible to get a straight answer for a lot of these. There are hundreds of songs, and even though John Darnielle has commented on most of them, he’s not always consistent. As all artists do, Darnielle has evolved over time and doesn’t feel the same way about some songs now. A song like “Going to Georgia” has to include both the fan obsession and the artist’s feelings to be completely understood, even though those aren’t always the same thing. It’s important to consider all sides of something, though that can get complicated.

The title track from Satanic Messiah, the four-song EP from 2008, requires an interesting inversion of that. It’s only a song about politics if you demand that it is, and Darnielle has said over and over that it’s not. He said in an interview that people are free to read his songs however they like, but that he hopes his view comes with “an extra bit of authority.” Lines like that get at the real difficulty of the process: you can’t be “right” or “wrong” if any reading is possible, can you? Fortunately, the catalog is more of a journey than a destination.

“Satanic Messiah” talks about the “pale-blue and washed out red” posters of a leader that makes the crowd feel young. That’s pretty much where the Obama comparisons stop, but that’s enough for a huge chunk of the fanbase to demand they’ve figured out the deeper meaning. From Darnielle’s lines about meaning in his work we can determine that you’re free to think that, but he’d like you to know that you’re deriving that meaning from a source that doesn’t have it. If you do want to get political, they’ve already done that.