music

029. Quito

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

“Quito” is a song about a person possessed and the power they believe they have over things out of their control.

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

We Shall All Be Healed was released in 2004, and in 2004 there existed a website that had accompanying details about the album. It’s gone now, but like all ephemera, it was fascinating. One of the great elements was the following: “You can pick your friends, that’s what people’s mothers are always telling them when they’re growing up. Listen to me: no you can’t.”

The album is about John Darnielle’s time in Portland, Oregon where he and his friends all nearly died doing meth. His dark quote from that dead website speaks of the fact that drugs force you to make friends with people you may or may not like. Nothing else matters beyond the high, and every song on the album reinforces the driving, continuous movement towards the nothingness that John sought with this band of brothers. In various interviews he’s suggested that many of his old friends didn’t deserve the fates that befell them, but it’s never about what you deserve.

Quito is the capital of Ecuador and is literally the “highest” capital city in the world, elevation-wise. The song borrows this name to talk about the process of going home after you have been changed by leaving. John’s Portland is a terrifying world, but it’s a specific one that reinforced his darkest tendencies. The third verse is especially interesting, because it’s one of the few moments on the album that John allows himself to talk about the “after” period. He sees himself getting “off the wheel” and making amends to those he’s wounded. He believes (or claims he believes) in a type of resurrection for those who died alongside him. Above all, it’s a song about the specific life John led in Portland and the power of believing you’re capable of controlling what you cannot control.

028. Counting Song For Bitter Children

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

 

A direct release from John Darnielle, “Counting Song For Bitter Children” is exactly what it sounds like.

Track: “Counting Song For Bitter Children”
Album: Unreleased (Uploaded to the forums by John Darnielle in 2007)

Since it’s 50% “na-na-na-na-na,” “Counting Song for Bitter Children” probably doesn’t require as much lyrical examination as most of the songs in the catalog, but the lyrics are an interesting footnote. The song itself came out of the official forums, when a person listed the opening lines as an example of unforgettable Goats lyrics. John Darnielle himself stepped in and said that he barely remembered the lyrics himself. It existed in the way a lot of songs like “Song for Roger Maris” exist, in that they are mostly talked about rather than actually listened to or performed.

John went on to record himself playing what he remembered of it and put it up online, so now there’s an “official” version of “Counting Song for Bitter Children.” It’s a testament to both John’s relationship with the fanbase and with the older parts of the catalog that he was inspired to record a decade-plus old song just in an attempt to remember it and share it. The result is a very quick, old-school Mountain Goats song with the line “good children get nothing” in it.

It’s a funny song, though “funny” as a concept for a Mountain Goats song is a concept we’ll have to get into later. The early Goats songs are “funny” at times, but like “Counting Song for Bitter Children” they largely use humor to conceal some darkness in a character. This one is an angry person talking to someone that they’re finished with. The message, and even the song itself, doesn’t matter nearly as much as the delivery.

027. Korean Bird Paintings

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

 

 

In “Korean Bird Paintings,” one character tries to impress another, but fails to do the real work necessary for their love.

Track: “Korean Bird Paintings”
Album: New Asian Cinema (1998)

For a band as well-loved and as examined as the Mountain Goats, it’s rare to find a song like “Korean Bird Paintings.” All of the usual sources have nothing to say about it. It’s never been played live, or if it has it has never been recorded and released. It has no mentions, essentially anywhere. It’s not even a rare song (it’s one of the five on New Asian Cinema) but it’s a strong contender for the “least-spoken-about” Goats song.

I’ve always loved it; it’s frequently my choice as my favorite when I have to pick just one, though I know that may sound silly for such an old song with no live versions. With no live performances or interpretations, we are left to consider it literally. It’s a person who misses someone and feels like they have no way to express it. They max out a Visa on the grandest gesture they can think of and fill the room with cards and balloons. When the object of their affection comes home, they reason, they will have to be impressed by the spectacle, if not by the love they have to give.

A lot of New Asian Cinema is about the struggle of relating to exactly one other person. Many of the characters can’t figure out exactly how to express what they feel, and “Korean Bird Paintings” sums up how we all spend most of our effort in the wrong ways. This narrator would tell you that they’ve done a lot of work, but we recognize it as meaningless work. It’s possible that their lover will appreciate it, but it’s more likely that they will be frustrated that they’ve spent all this time on what surely wasn’t the real problem.

026. Counterfeit Florida Plates

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , , ,

 

“Counterfeit Florida Plates” offers the listener a look into the sad life and life’s work of the insane.

Track: “Counterfeit Florida Plates”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

In a way, “Counterfeit Florida Plates” is really every song the Mountain Goats have ever made. It’s the direct story of a crazy person, and you can put whatever you’d like on top of that. The narrator walks you through their madness, from stealing sunscreen from a convenience store to their life’s work of trying to spot every single fake license plate from Florida. They truly believe they’ve been tasked with his and they wait for the day when people will come ask for the data. It’s madness, but it’s a system.

“Madness” isn’t necessarily interesting on its own, but John Darnielle offers us the specifics of this person’s life and “work” to ground the character. No one in any song on Transcendental Youth has an easy time of things, but the person in “Counterfeit Florida Plates” is totally beyond help. Their plan is to wait for “the coming disaster” and their great struggle is that they can’t quite find every car they feel like they needs to find. It’s easy to feel sorry for them, but then to feel even worse when you realize that even in “success” this character will still not achieve anything.

“This may be the night my point men finally come” is the line that makes the whole song. Many Goats characters are fighting in a war that’s already been lost, but we are led to believe that this one still thinks their life has meaning. They’re missing the one trait so many other narrators have: an acknowledgement that fighting for fighting’s sake is senseless. This one still must count the cars and still must wait, hungry and cold, for people that we know aren’t ever coming.

025. Noctifer Birmingham

Alex Russell Ghana , , , , , , ,

Two people are connected unexpectedly in one of the Mountain Goats’ favorite of their own songs.

Track: “Noctifer Birmingham”
Album: Ghana (1999)

The layers to a song like “Noctifer Birmingham” take years to unfold. In a rare live performance of the song in 1996, John Darnielle introduced it as “pretty goddamned obscure” and then joked that it was “a song about my fucking brother” before laughing and playing it. He didn’t play it again (so far as is generally known) until 2012, and even then he introduced it as “the first tricky song” in the catalog. In the album notes on Ghana he says that it’s the “high-water mark of the years 1992-95” and it’s one of his favorite songs.

You will notice that the guitar is very delicate, it’s one of the songs where the tune plays in the background. In the liner notes, John adds: “In a rare show of restraint, I do not even once attempt here to physically destroy the guitar by playing it as hard as I can.” It’s no “Cubs in Five” then, but it certainly doesn’t need to be. Rachel Ware’s bass and vocals add to a droning, continuous sense of the events of the song. The feel is beautiful, and her absence from the band for so long explains why it doesn’t really get played anymore, even though it’s one of John’s favorites.

It’s a classic style for the Mountain Goats, wherein we get enough of a story to be curious but not enough to really understand what’s going on. One character is shocked by a phone call and comes immediately to see someone else in Alabama. There are katydids in the background and other specifics, but what actually happened isn’t as important as that feeling we all know when we have to take a trip we don’t want to make as a result of some unexpected news.

023. Philippians 3:20-21

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

“Philippians 3:20-21” deals with the theological question of how a just God could allow a person to be suicidal.

Track: “Philippians 3:20-21”
Album: The Life of the World to Come (2009)

Philippians 3:20-21 talks of Jesus making the bodies of humans like his own after their death. It’s open to interpretation beyond that, but it generally means that you’ll join Jesus and be redeemed (physically and otherwise) with him once you die. The song “Philippians 3:20-21” is about how anything that requires you to die to feel better is a really tough sell.

John Darnielle wrote the song about David Foster Wallace, who hung himself because he couldn’t stand to be alive. The chemicals in his brain conspired against him, as they do in everyone with some kind of mental illness. John worked professionally with the mentally ill as a younger man and it’s a cause that is close to his heart. For Wallace specifically, he has said that he thinks one of the most difficult messages of Christianity is that it only deals with redemption and solutions post-mortem. In the song, “nice people said he was with God now,” which is a polite way to speak of the dead, but it didn’t do anything for him while he was alive.

For a person whose life is plagued by thoughts of suicide and self-harm, the idea that death will provide a spiritual respite is cold comfort. The rest of the chorus talks of the voices of angels being “smoke alarms,” since they signal the fire of his death but don’t do anything to stop the flames from coming. John has said that he thinks it’s difficult to understand how a kind and loving God could not give a person the chemistry needed to fend off dark thoughts and survive, and the “neuroleptics and electric shock” of “Philippians 3:20-21” are his way of saying it would be easier to believe if the salvation worked a little bit earlier.

022. Mole

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

John Darnielle flips the perspective of a real dark moment from his life to look at one of his own lowest points in “Mole.”

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

People think it’s the frantic, screaming songs that mean the most, but John Darnielle has always said that it’s the quiet ones that matter. Songs like “Waving at You” and “Mole” speak of the darkest parts. When performing “Mole” live, John will sometimes step away from the microphone and quietly recite the song into what rapidly becomes a silent audience. It’s more like a prayer than a song.

“Mole,” like the rest of We Shall All Be Healed, is about a group of drug addicts in the Pacific Northwest. They don’t fear death at all, but they deeply fear getting caught. In “All Up the Seething Coast,” the narrator is clear that “a thousand dead friends won’t stop me” because death doesn’t matter. What matters is getting caught, because then you will have to be alive without drugs.

In “Mole” a character has his head wrapped in bandages and is handcuffed to a bed. The reality behind the song’s creation is necessary to fully understand it. John has said that he is the handcuffed man, and that’s it’s based on something that really happened to him. He woke up handcuffed to a bed and spoke to a nurse he knew, only to find that he wasn’t going to be let out this time.

“Mole” is very minimal. The strum in the background feels like an IV drip, slowly falling in behind the lyrical description of a man chained to a bed. The chorus of “I am a mole / sticking his head above the surface of the earth” reminds us that this character has had very little time to consider his situation. He’s only interested in the cycle he’s created for himself, and in this dark moment his biggest fear is that they might try to stop it.

021. Tollund Man

Alex Russell Sweden , , , , , , ,

 

2000 years ago, “Tollund Man” met with the end of his life in a bog in Denmark with his eyes closed and a peaceful look.

Track: “Tollund Man”
Album: Sweden (1995)

A lot of these songs happen in California and Florida, but for “Tollund Man” we need to go back to Denmark in the 4th century, BCE. The real Tollund Man was hung in a bog for indeterminate reasons, though historians believe it to be a case of human sacrifice. He was found, nearly perfectly preserved, by peat farmers in 1950. The body was over 2,000 years old, but it was so well preserved that everyone believed it to be a recent murder victim.

“Tollund Man” the song describes the man’s last day. He eats a meal of “cooked wild grasses” and waits for his people to come and condemn him to death. It’s very simply laid out, but that doesn’t cut into the melancholia of “goodbye cold air, I am going away” or the final “goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.” It’s the perfect kind of tale: not fully decipherable as it is lost to history but clearly a sad end. Historians believe he was a sacrifice rather than a criminal because his eyes and mouth were closed. He looks at peace.

When the Goats play “Tollund Man” live they often add extra verses. That’s not uncommon for the band — for a bit the “alcohol” in “This Year” got replaced with “heroin” — but the “Tollund Man” additions are special. The Annotated Mountain Goats put together a good list, but my favorite is the excerpt from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73. I won’t be so bold as to interpret a sonnet here, but John belts out “there’s no mercy, which makes your love more strong // the love that, well, which you will have to leave before too long.” So many Goats characters can’t figure out how to deal in life, but possibly only Tollund Man found a way to leave this world at peace.

020. New Zion

Alex Russell Heretic Pride , , , , , , ,

 

The cult of “New Zion” isn’t important, but the way we think of our past selves as other people certainly is.

Track: “New Zion”
Album: Heretic Pride (2008)

First things first, Heretic Pride is a unique album to talk about because it’s illustrated. John Darnielle wrote descriptions of each song and asked the artist Jeffrey Lewis to illustrate them. It’s one of the most fascinating pieces of Mountain Goats art that exists. The art is spectacular and it’s possibly the most complete discussion of an album in the band’s history.

The source text, then, says “New Zion” is about a cult that doesn’t exist, but it’s also about John Darnielle’s fascination with the way something can consume you the moment you become aware of it. He describes “cultmania” in the illustration and laments that the world has fewer “bizarre screeds” now. The character in “New Zion” has lost their faith but not their people. They remember the flash or the importance of religion and remembers how it all started “like the memory of a movie.” Those days are gone.

As much as the song is about their present in the cult, it’s about the past that they can’t quite summon up. It’s a literal cult, but it’s also the feeling of being fully reborn as a new person with no concept of the old you. As the protagonist says they “dreamed a dream of where I come from” you can imagine the difficulty of recalling a past that they’re supposed to be beyond. The specifics of the cult aren’t important — the song mentions ravens and robes, so you get a general sense — but the general nature of transition is. As with so many Goats songs, “New Zion” talks about how transition is painful whether it’s voluntary or not. They’re waiting for someone to come save them physically, but they’re concerned that it’s too late to save everything else.

019. Narakaloka

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

 

 

In “Narakaloka,” a dying person fears the darkest parts of the afterlife and attempts to change their ways just before death.

Track: “Narakaloka”
Album: New Asian Cinema (1998)

If you’ve only heard the best-known songs by the Mountain Goats, you could pick a worse place to start your deeper research than New Asian Cinema. It’s a five song EP from 1998 that’s reasonably accessible even for people who haven’t yet bought in to the lo-fi world of the early Goats. “Korean Bird Paintings” and “Treetop Song” are instantly recognizable messages about hope in unlikely places. “Golden Jackal Song” and “Cao Dai Blowout” are metaphors, but they aren’t necessarily complicated ones. It’s “Narakaloka” that requires some consideration to decipher.

Naraka is the Hindu equivalent of Hell, and loka loosely translates to “world” or “realm.” From a purely linguistic standpoint, “Narakaloka” is the realm of the afterlife reserved for the worst of the worst. The song is delivered from the perspective of a person who is condemned to death and is concerned with how they’ve lived their life. They’re certainly dying, because even though “the doctor says I’ve got 30 days left at most” is the dark punchline to the song, this isn’t the kind of character that would benefit from lying.

John Darnielle has said at live shows that the song specifically refers to the concept that “Narakaloka” is the part of Hell reserved for those who denied food to the poor in life. Taking that in mind, it’s easy to imagine the character here getting a diagnosis and wondering if their house is in order enough to avoid Naraka. They’re growing cabbages and making French toast with imported cinnamon, but they may not be the sort of person who would have done that beforehand. They won’t be there to see the full fruits of their labor, but they do hope that this little bit of selflessness will spare them in eternity.