song meanings

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.

127. Half Dead

Alex Russell Get Lonely , , , , , , , , , ,

 

“Half Dead” is there for you when you need it, though you definitely don’t ever want to need it.

Track: “Half Dead”
Album: Get Lonely (2006)

Get Lonely is about solitude and the emotions that accompany it. It’s a fragile album that is unlikely to connect with you if you listen to it in a good mood. “If You See Light” is the closest to an “upbeat” song on the album, even though you’ll see couples swaying peacefully to “Woke Up New” at live shows. John Darnielle says he’s surprised that people say the album is about a breakup, but that seems to be the general consensus. A breakup is the most obvious and repeatable way loneliness shows up for most people. The songs on Get Lonely aren’t all directly about a breakup, but they’re about how you feel when someone (or everyone) is gone.

A lot of the early catalog looks at antagonistic lovers or conflict between unknown parties, but Get Lonely looks at the aftermath. It’s not totally new ground for the band, but John Darnielle really lets his guard down all across Get Lonely. “Wild Sage” in particular is chilling and absolutely the best song at every live show because you can feel how much he loves it. Get Lonely is a nice bridge between the autobiographical The Sunset Tree and the explosive Heretic Pride, but you need to be open to approach it.

“Half Dead” is about someone being gone. It’s a straightforward song about the morning someone you love and need is no longer there for you. They may be dead or they may be just gone, but there’s a totality to “Half Dead” that makes the distinction not important. The narrator goes outside and wails “what are the years we gave each other ever gonna be worth?” In a different tone or a different song that might be an angry line, but here it feels like an admission of defeat.

126. Hardpan Song

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

In “Hardpan Song,” a narrator considers how terrible weather is relatable when you’re feeling down and out.

Track: “Hardpan Song”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2013 reissue)

Merge Records reissued All Hail West Texas in 2013 with seven additional tracks. The original 2002 release is a turning point for John Darnielle, and you’ll find lots of devotees who call it the best album he’s released. It has several iconic songs and straddles all the moods of a great Mountain Goats album from deep and personal depression to boundless and triumphant love. The seven additional tracks on the 2013 release include an alternate take of “Jenny” and some really interesting oddities, with the main connective tissue being that they all sound like they would have made sense on All Hail West Texas from the start.

“Hardpan Song” opens with a sample from the radio and sounds like so many songs from the first decade of the Mountain Goats. In the liner notes of the reissue John Darnielle says as much and says that it doesn’t really feel right for the album. It’s definitely classic Darnielle, with the incongruous jazz and then a low, quiet musing about plant growth and how it’s just like his own sad existence.

Hardpan is soil that won’t keep water and thus won’t grow anything. The narrator thinks about hardpan and how ruined soil seems like it’s ruined forever, but then it rains and rains sometimes. They snarl “it shows no signs of stopping” and it’s clear that the miserable conditions evoke something else. It’s too brief for us to know exactly what situation is at play here, but the tense guitar and “the rain comes // it floods the town // and kills everybody in it” tell us that it’s not a great day in Texas. “Hardpan Song” is essentially a musing on “when it rains it pours,” but with typical Mountain Goats flourish.

125. Early Spring

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

Spring is typically a time of renewal, but the Mountain Goats remind us that not every new sensation is a good one in “Early Spring.”

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

“Early Spring” is the second song on Transmissions to Horace, the very early Mountain Goats album. Like every other song on the album, it was played in San Francisco in 2014 when John Darnielle played every song in order on one weird, beautiful summer night. After “Early Spring” one guy shouted “cover to cover” as a request. He hoped that, somehow, John Darnielle might play all 10 of those ancient songs in a row. He got what he wanted.

The album version is slow and creepy. John Darnielle’s voice is almost emotionless as he lists the truths of a couple’s current state of affairs. The coffee’s worse than it used to be, the paint’s peeling, and even jokes and songs have lost their luster. He lists these problems and closes each verse with “and I know you” twice. The narrator survived the winter with someone but now, in the spring, it seems like they see their situation in a much worse way.

The live version is what that guy wanted to hear. He wanted to hear John Darnielle speed up the delivery and howl “it’s a lie!” The second verse that night in San Francisco is why this song exists. You can hear John Darnielle’s fury and the emotion the narrator wants their mundane complaints to carry. “I know you” is a simple sentence that carries real darkness here, and it’s telling that even when John Darnielle yells the rest of the song he lowers his voice to deliver “I know you” the only way it can come across. It might be a period on the end of this relationship or it might just be the sign of another bad night, but it’s undeniably loaded no matter what.

124. The Hot Garden Stomp

Alex Russell Hot Garden Stomp , , , , , , ,

 

John Darnielle doesn’t write songs like “The Hot Garden Stomp” these days, but you can visit his most troubled characters in 1993.

Track: “The Hot Garden Stomp”
Album: Hot Garden Stomp (1993)

Some of the early Mountain Goats songs feature the same type of narrator. It may not be the same character, but it’s at the very least the same type of character: a sad person who is convinced that the right person could save their life with no effort put in on their part. It’s a reductive way to view another person, but it’s also a fairly common line of thinking among young people who haven’t realized the world doesn’t exist to serve their whims.

John Darnielle says that those type of narrators aren’t interesting to him anymore, but “those songs are not without their occasional charms.” There are scattered songs in the early part of the catalog that fit into this category and most of them don’t see the light of day now. “The Hot Garden Stomp” is a foot-stomper and works even now as long as you can separate the artist from the character.

Darnielle says these days of his main character that he’s “not impressed by his suffering” and there is no better summation of that angst than “I hear you talking // shut up.” These days Mountain Goats characters are more complex, but in 1993 it was enough to be furious and sweat in a hot room.

Live versions work better than the studio version in this case. The trip back to 1993 with the tape crackles is interesting, but the howl over “then you came along with your questions, always questions” on live versions sells this old gem. It’s also worth tracking down this recording from Bloomington, IN in 2011 where Darnielle discusses the gender neutrality of all of his characters and why he doesn’t like writing about people with worldviews like this anymore.

123. Leaving Home

Alex Russell Ghana , , , , , , ,

For John Darnielle, “Leaving Home” is a way to process the sad feeling of moving away from somewhere you love.

Track: “Leaving Home”
Album: Ghana (1999)

“Leaving Home” was originally released in 1996 as part of a compilation called Cyanide Guilt Trip. It was re-released on Ghana three years later with several other oddities and early tracks. Ghana is an essential album because it covers so much ground, but it’s odd to listen to in one sitting. It has some funny, light songs like “Anti Music Song” and “The Anglo-Saxons” and some emotional, quiet songs like “The Last Day of Jimi Hendrix’s Life” and “Raja Vocative.” It’s not that one type of song is better than the other, it’s just that they don’t necessarily flow into one another. You thus need to listen to Ghana the way you’d read a history textbook. It has all the details, though the story may not always feel linear.

“Leaving Home” belongs in the second group. In the liner notes on Ghana, John Darnielle says that he wrote it while he lived in Chicago for six months in 1995 and that he missed his home in California. It’s rare for John Darnielle to be this forthcoming: “It seems maudlin to say things out loud, so I made up a whole different set of circumstances with which to surround the feeling.” Everyone can remember a time they moved and felt like they were in the wrong place, even briefly.

John Darnielle replaces his situation with a couple with a young child. They’re in love. The speaker remarks on China, their home, as it shrinks into the distance. They share longing glances, but they also comment on how they’re deeply in love and might just need each other. It’s rare for a Mountain Goats song to discuss such uncomplicated love, and it feels like John Darnielle needed to imagine what would justify the choice to leave somewhere you don’t want to leave.

122. Treetop Song

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

 

“Treetop Song” is a rare bit of positive thinking in the world of the Mountain Goats.

Track: “Treetop Song”
Album: New Asian Cinema (1998)

At this show on April 9th, 2009 in Bloomington, Indiana, John Darnielle played some of Moon Colony Bloodbath with John Vanderslice. He played the never-released “For TG&Y” and the old classic “Cobscook Bay.” At the end, he came out and played a three-song encore that many Mountain Goats fans would swoon over: “Treetop Song,” “Cutter,” and of course, “No Children.”

This performance is the only live recording of “Treetop Song” that I can find. John Darnielle stumbles over a line towards the end and the crowd has to help him. This happens sometimes when he tries to play a very old, very rare song. It’s endearing, because it shows that even the man himself can’t keep a 500+ song catalog in his head at once. It’s always a fun moment when one voice calls out the missing lyric to a weird song in the middle of a concert, even if that might sound like a weird thing to like.

You won’t hear this live very often because the harmonica is important and that’s John Darnielle playing it. Aside from the harmonica, it’s almost a slight song. Both Darnielle’s delivery and strumming seem calm. It’s a great album-ending track in that way. The characters in New Asian Cinema are all struggling, but we see most of them right before the bubble bursts. The narrator of “Treetop Song” makes a decision to jump from one tree to another, but they also assure us that this choice means good things. Darnielle emphasizes the “be” in “And I knew that I would be all right.” In other songs this kind of statement might make you wonder if they were trying to convince themselves, but here it sounds like a fact.