song meanings

340. Peacocks

Alex Russell Tallahassee , , , , , , , ,

The Alpha Couple enjoys a diversion and some confusion before the inevitable end in “Peacocks.”

Track: “Peacocks”
Album: Tallahassee (2002)

In 2012, John Darnielle tweeted this about “Peacocks” and how the lyrics were originally “way more sexually explicit.” For an album so obsessed with a married couple, there’s very little sexual in the lyrics of Tallahassee. It sounds like we missed an opportunity here, and John Darnielle adding that he’s “totally not joking” is some acknowledgement of how weird it might have been.

What we do have is just a mention of “hands grasping and groping” and the powerful phrase “seizing opportunity right where it lies.” This is after “No Children” and even “See America Right.” We’re well past hope, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a certain kind of love still between the Alpha Couple. John Darnielle says “Peacocks” is about “encroaching dread” but it’s also about that very specific, very distant, kind of love.

The original website for Tallahassee was a marvelous reflection of the themes of the album, with strange videos about Vicodin and haunting game shows and, yes, peacocks in the front yard. Kyle Barbour of The Annotated Mountain Goats includes the whole text of a pamphlet about peacocks that was on that site here, I will call attention to “peacocks mate for life, but one mate will often attempt to kill the other just prior to migration.” It was always going to end badly, but there are moments where the line ticks above zero before that, even if you can’t explain everything all the time.

339. Idylls of the King

Alex Russell Tallahassee , , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle juxtaposes a soft tune with a creeping message of doom in “Idylls of the King.”

Track: Idylls of the King”
Album: Tallahassee (2002)

It is nothing new to call Tallahassee special. It’s a real turning point for John Darnielle, though you could make a case for a half-dozen other albums as the “turning point.” I think something that doesn’t get enough credit is the album’s range, as it goes between screaming, dark rage and almost-wistful melancholy. The narrative barrels on through the Alpha Couple’s marriage as it decays in Florida, but the couple expresses it through songs that ebb and flow.

“Idylls of the King” takes a title from Tennyson, but if it takes more than that I cannot say. The opening verse describes a setting that might be hopeful, but then likens the promise and potential of a new day to clay pigeons to be shot out of the sky. By the second verse, the narrator imagines vultures and locusts surrounding them. Tallahassee as a setting is meant to do a lot of things, but Florida as a mixture of an aspiration and a nightmare is an easy sell even without the failing marriage. This is extreme, but you can see it.

We’re still close to the middle, here. The very next song is “No Children,” where this narrator will no longer hold back, but there’s still some small level of restraint. “How long will we ride this wave out,” they ask, though we know it’s not really going to stop. You don’t say that your dreams are “haunted by armies, armies of ghosts” to anyone that you believe you can build more of a life with, do you? The tune itself may feel light, but the message shows this is as set as the scene can be for the crash that’s coming next.

338. Soft Targets

Alex Russell Bedside Recordings Vol. 1.2 , , , , , ,

John Darnielle shows us two people who want to believe they aren’t the problem in “Soft Targets.”

Track: “Soft Targets”
Album: Bedside Recordings Vol. 1.2 (2003)

People love to debate if any Mountain Goats song is “an Alpha Couple song” or not. Nearly all of them have the word Alpha in the title, but it isn’t true of all of them. This allows you to believe that any song you want to believe is about the miserable, doomed Alpha Couple is, in fact, about them. You have that freedom and no one can tell you otherwise. I get the argument and it seems like a safe bet, but I don’t think so. I think these two have too much perspective and, notably, a baby, though the story of the Alpha Couple sometimes breaks from the otherwise clear “No Children” rule.

“There’s not going to be a hero,” John Darnielle said once about songs like this, and about “Soft Targets” specifically he said “there are just two people fucking up.” This is true of Mountain Goats songs even when they aren’t about the Alpha Couple. The message of John Darnielle, very often, is that people and situations are complicated. The entire first verse here realizes a terrifying scene very clearly, with one person breaking plates and the other desperately trying and failing to deescalate.

It’s the final verse that does it, though. “When I hunt down the vampire that did this to us, I will rip out his heart with my hands” is an all-time scream line for John Darnielle, but it’s also something to investigate. No one “did this” to these people, they did it. “Soft targets” in military speak are people, as opposed to “hard targets” like buildings, and they are casualties. These two characters want to believe an outside force has ruined things, but the call is coming from inside the house.

337. Isaiah 45:23

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

John Darnielle speaks about illness and managing through it in “Isaiah 45:23.”

Track: “Isaiah 45:23”
Album: The Life of the World to Come (2009)

Isaiah 45:23, the verse, forms one of the lines of “Isaiah 45:23,” the Mountain Goats song. The verse is about devoting your life to the Lord and accepting his divinity. John Darnielle cribs this with “let every knee be bent and every tongue confess.” Much of Isaiah deals with this level of intense devotion and the fiery language needed to get the population back on track in the eyes of the Lord after being swayed by idolatry.

John Darnielle says it’s a song about illness and how we respond to the news that we’re going to have to live with chronic pain. This is explicit in the song, with “the pain begins to travel, dancing as it goes.” Maybe you have a relatable experience and maybe you don’t, but either way you can imagine the moment you get the news and the ways you’ll have to adjust. After a former life as a nurse and a health scare of his own, John Darnielle knows both sides of this coin.

The versus use religious language, but the chorus is more universal while still expressing a connected idea: “and I won’t get better // but someday I’ll be free // ’cause I am not this body // that imprisons me.” There are other Mountain Goats songs in this vein, but few that go this explicitly to the idea that some things that feel permanent actually aren’t. At one point, often in a scary way but sometimes in a hopeful one, you will think of yourself as someone who can’t be hurt that way anymore.

336. Pale Green Things

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

“Pale Green Things” closes The Sunset Tree with an open question about how to remember a complex figure in your life.

Track: “Pale Green Things”
Album: The Sunset Tree (2005)

It is a helluva thing that John Darnielle was willing to create The Sunset Tree at all. It’s common to call an artist’s work “personal” and that word applies to a lot of what the Mountain Goats make, but this album requires a further examination of that term. It’s possible to listen to much of the album without squaring yourself in John Darnielle’s personal experience, but that is not true of the closing song “Pale Green Things.” By the time the album ends, the journey through abuse and the challenges of youth has been through a number of experiences. It ends with a difficult, conflicted note.

The line that unlocks everything is in the final verse, where John Darnielle describes a phone call about the death of his stepfather as “she told me how you died at last // at last.” The repetition is important because of the implied question mark on the second part. How could you say it that way, on the one hand, but what if that’s the only way to say it?

This is the album with “This Year” and “Up the Wolves.” The Sunset Tree is largely an album about sad, distant memories and how they can be both difficult and important. It’s a wonder that he was willing to go this deep and that he was willing to share it. You probably relate to some of it broadly, which is why the general, fast, loud ones have been played hundreds of times and endure to such a degree. “Pale Green Things” is a song for one person about one time.

335. Daniel 12:8 (third)

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

Two versions of “Daniel 12:8 (third)” offer slightly different takes on how to view a moment you’re afraid is full of importance.

Track: “Daniel 12:8 (third)”
Album: The Life of the World in Flux (2009)

The Book of Daniel is all about what might happen. Daniel interprets God’s messages and hears from angels. He performs superhuman feats to prove his divine access and lays down with lions and survives flames sent to destroy him. It’s really easy to understand, as stories like these go, and it’s hard to argue with the idea that he knows what he needs to know. The kings of his day come to be impressed and come to listen to him, but only after he can prove it.

There are many ways to take these lessons and there’s an argument about faith that comes from Daniel’s doubters only believing him after seeing irrefutable proof. Daniel 12:8, the verse “Daniel 12:8 (third)” takes a title from, finds Daniel questioning an angel. Even after interpreting dreams for kings and hearing other divine messages, Daniel is only human and needs help understanding the angelic message. He asks “what will the outcome of all this be?”

This song didn’t make it to The Life of the World to Come. It’s only on the demo album The Life of the World in Flux. Further complicating this, we have the “third” version on the demo and the “first” version John Darnielle released separately. The versions differ only in their ending, with the first version offering a hopeful ending and the third version decidedly less so. There are multiple interpretations you can draw from each version, but this song stems from a time when John Darnielle was thinking about his health and about his life to that point. Through that lens, Daniel’s confusion and fear may be about a turning point where things will either get better or they won’t.

334. Game Shows Touch Our Lives

Alex Russell Tallahassee , , , , , , , ,

In one of the best Alpha Couple songs, John Darnielle asks us to consider a difficult evening in “Game Shows Touch Our Lives.”

Track: “Game Shows Touch Our Lives”
Album: Tallahassee (2002)

People will talk about “No Children” forever because the chorus is undeniable, but the Alpha Couple has so many memorable moments across Tallahassee. John Darnielle tells the tale of this couple and how they fall into darkness so completely that people often think it’s some form of autobiography. Many of the great albums from this period of the Mountain Goats are, but this is a story that only borrows from real stories. It is real to remember a moment with cheap gin and sad evenings, but it wasn’t John Darnielle’s life at the time. This is the man who wrote “There Will Be No Divorce,” but he didn’t write it about these characters.

“Everything’s gonna be okay soon // maybe tomorrow // maybe the next day,” is one of those sets of lines that could feel underwritten. Most of this one isn’t necessarily that complicated, but it really solidly nails the emotions of a dark, stale room where there’s a very real fear that the morning won’t be any better. “I’m in the mood // the mood for you,” is one of the last moments of love this couple shares, and even that is a slight one. We’re only on track four of the album and already our couple needs gin to make it to the morning.

There were two “hidden” videos released on the website for Tallahassee and this one clearly goes with this song. That video could be funny in the right light, but I suspect if you identify with this song it will hit you the way it’s intended.

333. You or Your Memory

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

John Darnielle finds himself with dark thoughts in a motel in “You or Your Memory.”

Track: “You or Your Memory”
Album: The Sunset Tree (2005)

You can look up the motel that’s described in “You or Your Memory.” You can piece it together from live shows and figure out where this real place is and go see it. I normally would defend you doing so as a part of connecting with any Mountain Goats song. This is the only case where I would say you don’t need to do it. I think you can picture it when you hear it and if you go seek to verify if you were right or not, you will only be disappointed. Trust me when I say that you’re right, you don’t need to go see.

“You or Your Memory” is a song that challenges you to discuss it because it is so self-evident. It’s a song about what it is. Someone comes home to a motel and lays everything out and has to make a choice. John Darnielle has said it’s a Hobson’s choice, a term for a situation where someone can either take what is available or choose to take nothing. It’s all a way of talking around the situation, in that the narrator is dealing with loss and isn’t sure how to approach the next day.

The Sunset Tree is about loss. It’s a complicated loss, a death where in “Pale Green Things” the narrator, John, even says “they told me how you died ‘at last’ // ‘at last?'” Loss is never easy, by sheer nature, but it is harder with other things layered on top. “You or Your Memory” is a song about the layers in yourself that you bring to how you process loss.

332. Going to Port Washington

Alex Russell Ghana , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle and Rachel Ware harmonize and tell a sweet story well worth hearing in “Going to Port Washington.”

Track: “Going to Port Washington”
Album: Ghana (1999)

Any time you speak in absolutes you end up being wrong, but I think “Going to Port Washington” is the best song from the John Darnielle and Rachel Ware era. There’s kinda nothing to it, but that’s kinda the point. It’s just the story of one person seeing another person and being really, really, really in love. There aren’t as many of those as there are songs about the opposite experience that comes later after some bad times, but even among the happier songs this stands out.

It was originally on The Wedding Record, which was released to announce a wedding. John Darnielle once mentioned that the couple from that wedding is now divorced. You can also piece together the geography from those stories and figure out this is Port Washington, New York, and the Throgs Neck Bridge extends over the East River. Interestingly, it extends to Throggs Neck, with an extra g, but the person who named the bridge spelled it with one g, thus the bridge is forever spelled wrong.

When I think about love songs, I don’t think about “Going to Port Washington.” It is a love song, for sure, but the polish of the thing is what comes to mind when revisiting it. It’s so crisply recorded and the harmony is so perfect. John Darnielle called it the best recording they ever made together and it’s tough to argue with that. The band has evolved and made much more complicated and ambitious things than this, but considered among other output of the style at the time this is the apex. It’ll always be what I think of as “the old stuff.”

331. Creature Song

Alex Russell Ghana , , , , , , ,

“Creature Song” relies on a classic for the chorus but a John Darnielle original for the memorable verses.

Track: “Creature Song”
Album: Ghana (1999)

Like “Pure Sound,” “Creature Song” was released both on Goar Magazine #11 in 1995 and on the compilation Ghana in 1999. Goar was a music magazine in Germany in the 1990s and it is difficult to track down much beyond that. People have sold a few of this release in the last few years, so it is not unreasonable to think you could get one. I’ve never been that kind of collector, but I can understand the appeal of wanting to hold in your hand the release from 1995 that brought some small corner of the world two more Mountain Goats songs.

The chorus of “Creature Song” comes from The Tempest: “oh, brave new world // that has such people in it.” This happens in the older songs, though the references are usually a little harder to spot than this. The chorus stiches two verses together and the song is very short, even for an early Mountain Goats song. The first chorus is the sweet spot, I think, with a relatable opener in “I remember the sound of your voice // but none of what you said.” There are dozens of Mountain Goats songs from this era from the perspective of a narrator that can’t really understand another person but really wants to do so, and “Creature Song” could simply be another one. The nearly whispered delivery sets it apart, though, and it sticks with you to wonder what “no harm intended, no harm” means and what the “only choice” the narrator feels they have just might be exactly.