the alpha couple

260. All Devils Here Now

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , , , ,

The neighbors look in on the Alpha Couple in “All Devils Here Now.”

Track: “All Devils Here Now”
Album: Unreleased (Released on Twitter by John Darnielle in 2012)

John Darnielle released “All Devils Here Now” himself on Twitter and said it “shares psychic & geographic space with all the other stuff I was writing about in 2002 & 2003.” Even if he didn’t offer that directly, you’d pick out the Alpha Couple from the story.

Most of the songs about the ill-fated couple in Tallahassee, Florida focus on how they fall in and out of love with each other as they realize this isn’t going to work. It’s rare to get an outsider’s perspective, but “All Devils Here Now” shows us what it’s like to live next to these people and consider their existence without all the details. From what we know, these neighbors see enough, but lines like “you see us at the grocery store // you wonder what we’re shopping for” are evocative. Who among us hasn’t felt that?

The few live versions that exist don’t do justice to the song, for my money. The bugs in the background are real, as John Darnielle confirmed when he released the song, and live it becomes more jaunty than the demo. The demo has the feel of being on the back porch with these two and hearing them tell you these things. There’s an element of self awareness to the delivery mechanism. The Alpha Couple always knows they are doomed and what sets them apart is usually their willingness to engage with that fact, if only internally. They don’t embrace the darkness until the end, which puts this probably closer to the end of the trajectory, but “shrieks and squeals” and “worse for wear” could describe any weekend with these two.

248. Alpha in Tauris

Alex Russell Zopilote Machine , , , , , , , , ,

The Alpha Couple, or people much like them, find themselves in the moments after the fact in “Alpha in Tauris.”

Track: “Alpha in Tauris”
Album: Zopilote Machine (1994)

“The moment’s sweet, but it’s all wrong” is as close to a thesis statement for the Alpha Couple as you’ll find. Prior to Tallahassee, the album entirely about this couple, you can look at song titles to identify a song about these specific characters. You also have to look past some conflicting details, but the alpha songs are really about the emotions that go into difficult relationships rather than two specific people. John Darnielle says “Alpha in Tauris” is about one character having an affair with a much older character, which doesn’t seem to fit the rest of the Alpha Couple story, but why let that matter?

Whether this is part of that saga or not, “Alpha in Tauris” is thematically similar. John Darnielle has played it a lot over the years, especially for a song from 1994, and at a show in Austin in 2003 he simply said “it’s a true story.” We can assume he means it’s true for someone, but you can make of that what you wish. Whoever these characters are, they are in a tense moment when we find them. “I’m the model of composure out there,” our narrator says, and John Darnielle’s voice cracks over “but you oughta see me shaking later on.”

Many of the portrayals of infidelity in Mountain Goats songs focus on the cheaters and how they feel about their illicit love. “Alpha in Tauris” holds the camera on the moment after the “good” part. “My brain gets flooded six hours later,” they say, twice, and we live briefly in the moment when someone considers their actions. It isn’t clear if this is regret or just general anguish, but it seems like they want this all to be simpler, but might not appreciate it as much if that were the case.

242. Alpha Omega

Alex Russell Protein Source of the Future...Now!, Why You All So Thief? , , , , , , , ,

The original end to the Alpha Couple story, “Alpha Omega” features a last meal of a different variety.

Track: “Alpha Omega”
Album: Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

“Alpha Omega” was released on a compilation album in 1995 (and re-released in 1999 as part of another album) and was originally the last song in the story of the Alpha Couple. Tallahassee would eventually follow it in 2002 and offer a deeper look at the couple that gets together and breaks apart over dozens of songs across the Mountain Goats’ career.

It would have been a fine ending if Tallahassee weren’t such a spectacular album. The narrator wakes up to a note on scented paper that tells them it is over. They then make boiled peanuts and think about what this all means. This is the same couple as the two in “No Children,” so an eventual sad end was inevitable. The boiled peanuts is just a John Darnielle touch. If you’ve never had them, you should try them. Just like the Mountain Goats, no one “likes” boiled peanuts, you feel very strongly if you like them at all.

One half of the Alpha Couple standing around with boiled peanuts and a goodbye note is a sad image, but it’s even sadder with this delivery. John Darnielle’s voice cracks the same way your voice would crack if you told someone about this moment in your life. It stands out even among other intentional cracks from the early albums.

“Alpha Rats Nest” ultimately replaces this song in the story and offers us an ending that is slightly more ambiguous. The Alpha Couple doesn’t survive either story, but Tallahassee doesn’t have this hard door-slam moment. Tallahassee is possibly the most complete Mountain Goats album, but we’ll always have this earlier branch of the story where someone actually got out alive.

234. Alphabetizing

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

The Alpha Couple is caught in a memorable, beautiful moment in the days before in “Alphabetizing.”

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

John Darnielle has played “Alphabetizing” live more often than he has most songs from 1993. “I will defend this song, from the earlier ones, I think it’s alright,” he said at a show at Pitzer College, his alma mater, in 2006. During several performances, he has commented about how it ends abruptly on Chile de Árbol and he thus makes an effort to end it that way even now at live shows. It shines in these performances in ways the early songs don’t always work. They’re working seeking out.

The title hints at it, but the man himself has confirmed at live shows that this is a song about the Alpha Couple. We start with one admiring another, in lyrics that foreshadow “Going to Georgia” in a way. “I love you especially // because I saw you // coming through // the screen door // up on the second floor // out on the balcony” is a mundane string of details, but it tells us this character is overcome. When you love someone above all else and, when pressed, say it’s because they came through a screen door, you aren’t in a place to behave rationally. That’s either pure love or the blinding hope that comes before what comes after that.

We’re in familiar territory in the second verse. “The air was thick with alcohol,” our narrator now says, and pleads for time to make them forget the good moments. “Let the years come and take away my memory // I will not forget the shock that ran though me,” they say, and tell us again about this beautiful moment they witnessed. This is still the good times, but a mist of booze and an understanding that good times don’t last are all we need to know where we’re headed.

 

201. Design Your Own Container Garden

Alex Russell See America Right , , , , , , , , ,

One half of the Alpha Couple reflects on different, if not happier times, in “Design Your Own Container Garden.”

Track: “Design Your Own Container Garden”
Album: See America Right (2002)

A container garden is any garden in a pot or a container. It’s a way to describe anywhere a plant could be grown other than the ground. It’s a stretch, but the phrase “Design Your Own Container Garden” might refer to the Alpha Couple, who have uprooted themselves from the west coast and relocated to their miserable future in Florida. It might also just be a phrase John Darnielle saw in a catalog, thus a similar play on “See America Right,” the title of the single the song exists on.

The narrator drives out to a specific intersection in Los Angeles. As of this writing, it features a fried chicken chain restaurant, a check cashing place, and a storage center. The details don’t matter, but the specificity helps us picture that this corner matters. We have those in our lives, too. This member of the Alpha Couple doesn’t care about LA, they care about what happened when they were in this spot.

They mention “old friends, old friends” and later call them “here ghosts, old ghosts.” You can’t go home again, John Darnielle tells us again and again, but you can wander around where home used to be and feel the feelings that are left behind. “Design Your Own Container Garden” is filled with death imagery, as the narrator talks about feeling like a buzzard and walking through wreckage. It’s the “space we left behind” to this character, and it’s clearly not something they view positively now. It makes sense to be a b-side because it doesn’t fit tonally with Tallahassee, but it’s also interesting to wonder when in the timeline we are. Is this after everything, or does this character already feel sad even though they don’t know the worst of what’s to come?

183. Star Dusting

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

In a casino in old Las Vegas, the Alpha Couple tries and fails to communicate.

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

The Stardust Resort and Casino stood in Las Vegas for decades. You probably would recognize the sign, it’s one of the iconic pieces of Vegas that you know even if you haven’t been there. The place isn’t around anymore; a company says they’re building a new Chinese-themed resort in a few years. The Wikipedia article for it is not well policed. One mundane fact includes ten separate citations, most of which are personal YouTube videos with memories and slideshows. The article is extremely long and includes a ton of asides and rambling details, all of which create an endearing sense of the love people felt for this defunct casino.

“Star Dusting” borrows the resort’s name and shows us an early day in the Alpha Couple’s lives. One mumbles at another and they attempt to communicate. It all breaks down as one perceives the sound of bells ringing out from the other’s throat. “I thought I heard bells ringing // But then I remembered that I no longer knew what bells sounded like” is pure John Darnielle, with a very confusing image crammed into two lines. The song lazes along over slow guitar and the droning delivery of a drunken evening in Las Vegas. These two have spent a year in this place and it’s definitely not going to get any better any time soon. John Darnielle opens the song by stating the date and saying “this is a horror story,” and you can feel the tension build. It all won’t pay off in explosion for over a decade, but the anger of “No Children” is already there.

151. New Chevrolet in Flames

Alex Russell See America Right , , , , , , , , ,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFHT4YQd3JU

The Alpha Couple has some fun in suspect ways in “New Chevrolet in Flames.”

Track: “New Chevrolet in Flames”
Album: See America Right (2002)

A fan asked John Darnielle why he never plays “New Chevrolet in Flames” at live shows. The response was simple. John Darnielle says that it is a b-side and isn’t as good as anything on Tallahassee and that the studio version says all he has to say about it.

I’m not a musician, but “New Chevrolet in Flames” sounds a lot like “Alphabetizing,” a song from 1993. If they’re different at all it’s not in a way that I can determine. It’s possible that’s deliberate and it’s possible that it’s just a function of John Darnielle writing ~1000 songs in nearly three decades and not caring about the similarities between one of his ancient tracks and a b-side.

Lyrically, “New Chevrolet in Flames” is more complex than “Alphabetizing” and strikes a different tone than its brothers and sisters on Tallahassee. It’s funny and shies away from the desperation that comes across directly on “funny” songs like “No Children.” It’s a weird song, as it looks at the Alpha Couple in one of their lighter moments. They drink Colorado Bulldogs (and tell you how to make your own in the first verse) and decide to buy a car while wearing their finest threads.

As they light the car on fire and either stay in it or leave, depending on how darkly you view the song, they probably experience some kind of relief. It has to be a gleeful moment for two people who fairly relentlessly don’t experience glee. It comes from a terrible place, but it’s a fun moment when you don’t consider the consequences. It’s hard to not love that moment if you’re able to abstract it.

140. Twelve Hands High

Alex Russell Martial Arts Weekend , , , , , , , , , ,

 

A horse crashes through a wall in “Twelve Hands High” to force a conversation between the Alpha Couple.

Track: “Twelve Hands High”
Album: Martial Arts Weekend (2002)

If you squint, most of the songs on Martial Arts Weekend could be love songs, but there really isn’t a theme that binds the whole thing together. It’s an Extra Glenns/Lens record, so it’s technically a side project that John Darnielle recorded with Franklin Bruno, but many of the songs have been played at Mountain Goats shows and I think that rounds it up to being part of the expanded Mountain Goats universe.

Saying there’s no uniting theme for Martial Arts Weekend isn’t an insult. It’s a fantastic album and is loud and bouncy compared to the other Glenns/Lens album Undercard. Both have standout tracks and belong in any fan’s top albums list, but they sit in stark stylistic contrast. Most of the cast on Undercard seems lost and lonely. The characters on Martial Arts Weekend aren’t happy, but they’re exuberant. They want to share their stories.

“Twelve Hands High” is also called “Fit Alpha Vi,” which is Latin for “alpha is violent,” roughly. John Darnielle says the idea behind it was originally a poem and predates his songwriting career. The version that made it to Martial Arts Weekend sees the Alpha Couple arguing about a horse. They’re angrier than they usually are and more direct, which is interesting. One tells the other that they feel “pressure bearing down” and the other has been sleeping on the lawn. John Darnielle raises his voice over “and there’s a different world waiting for me // when I lift my head up from your thick dark hair” and you can picture the scene. It took a horse crashing through a wall to make the Alpha Couple face their problems, but we know that this is only a moment of clarity before they’ll be back to drunken denial.

119. Alpha Rats Nest

Alex Russell Tallahassee , , , , , , ,

The Alpha Couple is on their last legs in “Alpha Rats Nest” but they aren’t quite finished.

Track: “Alpha Rats Nest”
Album: Tallahassee (2002)

Tallahassee may take some time to process. When you first hear it, you’re probably going to latch on to “No Children.” That’s perfectly normal. The hook in “No Children” is outstanding and it gets across the message of Tallahassee easier than most other tracks. Subsequent listens will probably highlight the rockers. You might like the dance music of “Southwood Plantation Road” or the chugging anger of “See America Right.” It will depend on your mood and relationship status, but all of Tallahassee will eventually seep into you.

Different people like different Mountain Goats albums, but Tallahassee is likely their best and most complete. It’s the journey of one couple (the Alpha Couple) as they drive from California to Florida to spend their married life together. They love each other and hate each other and something in between that’s closer to how people feel at their worst. They try to save their marriage (sort of) but they mostly pour cheap vodka all over it and glare at each other in the heat. They know it’s all over but they’re so in love with the end of it.

John Darnielle says that “Alpha Rats Nest” was always going to be the last song on the album. The strumming makes it feel like a “fun” song, which is fitting for a song about the end and Tallahassee. It’s not just a divorce album, it’s about how this couple thinks even their end must be dramatic. They’ve just been through “Oceanographer’s Choice” and yelled at each other, and there’s still an end to come after “Alpha Rats Nest.” “Sing for the damage we’ve done,” one says, “and the worse things we’ll both do.” Their actual end is too dark to be a song, so it’s fitting that we leave on a questionably “happy” note.

094. Alpha Desperation March

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

 

“Alpha Desperation March” is either creepy or funny depending on your perspective, but it’s definitely evocative.

Track: “Alpha Desperation March”
Album: Transmissions to Horace (1993) and Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

“Alpha Desperation March” is primarily one of the earliest songs in the Alpha series about the Alpha Couple, the miserable lovers that show up in dozens of Mountain Goats songs before their entire album Tallahassee. It’s also a test for the band. It’s a bitter song told from the perspective of an angry lover who confronts their other half and then laughs uncomfortably at them for nearly 30 seconds.

It may be challenging to start with “Alpha Desperation March” if you’re new to the band. The early Goats songs have a high price of admission sometimes and the uncomfortable laughter at the end is a prime example. If you’re well versed in the world of John Darnielle you’ll understand it as an eerie coda to the argument his narrator has over the course of the song. You might understand that without any other Mountain Goats knowledge, but it would assume that you’ve had some hard times with someone that involved money and love and I don’t want to assume anything about you.

It’s a classic from the early era and I call it a test because it’s completely understandable that someone who just wants polished, produced, full sound will probably not understand the love for “Alpha Desperation March” and that’s OK. There are plenty of albums that fit those descriptions, but it’s amazing in a totally different way that John Darnielle was already capable in 1993 of writing “see I’m perfectly aware of where our love stands // but the plain fact is that you owe me eight grand // if it helps to jog your memory I lent to you one Tuesday when we were drinking.” You can just see this argument and you can feel it with the bite on “drinking.”