the mountain goats

167. Alibi

Alex Russell Babylon Springs EP , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle presents a simple case of infidelity as a love song in “Alibi.”

Track: “Alibi”
Album: Babylon Springs EP (2006)

There are so many songs about cheating in the Mountain Goats catalog. I haven’t done the math, but it seems like they even out when you consider the different perspectives. Most songs about infidelity are songs of pain from the perspective of the wronged, but John Darnielle is equally interested in the cheated-on and the cheaters.

“Alibi” focuses on the fun part. One character leaves work late and drives to someone’s house to sleep with them. This is identifiable behavior, and the repetition of “I had been waiting all day” feels earnest. You might even recall a time you did something similar and smile at the memory.

You might feel differently about “and I was like a patient on a table // headed for the light.” The mood here is all explosive joy and anticipation, but there’s also some fear that the narrator won’t face. The chorus reveals that they have “an almost airtight alibi” which is also the first suggestion that this isn’t something purely wonderful. It’s a love song, but this character also relates their behavior to giving in to the power of death, so it’s not all sunshine for these folks.

After the first chorus, our character hides their car, creeps around, and likens themselves to “a men prepared to jump beneath a train.” These are less relatable emotions. The couple talks about shutting the window in favor of a fan and it’s clear that they accept how secretive and wrong this is.

“Your boyfriend’s out of town until Tuesday,” the narrator says, and excitedly repeats “and nobody saw me come in” twice. Wrong as it may be, it carries the feeling of a pure love song until you remember the absent third character.

166. Sun Song

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

A frustrated narrator speaks about their relationship in gardening terms in “Sun Song.”

Track: “Sun Song”
Album: Hot Garden Stomp (1993)

The early recordings can be tough on the ears. The production on Hot Garden Stomp is poor, no doubt, but it’s still the same John Darnielle. He once went through every song on the album and described the likelihood of him playing any of them ever again at a live show, and while you aren’t going to hear “Sun Song” on the summer tour this year, you can hear the seeds of every song that followed it.

The narrator yells at a partner about their shortcomings through an extended gardening metaphor. It starts easy, but as John Darnielle tortures the metaphor we begin to feel the pain of the speaker. “There are certain gardening skills that you don’t have yet,” they bark, and we know this is about something very important to them. “There are certain gardening secrets you don’t know,” they conclude, with a finality that no one else could deliver.

I’d understand any fan that had difficulty getting into the early stuff, but “Sun Song” features a set of lines that explains John Darnielle’s humor and writing technique better than most:

“You said the soil looked nitrogen poor
Well, don’t you worry about the soil looking nitrogen poor
I think that’s my problem if the soil is nitrogen poor
But for myself it looks kind of nitrogen rich”

The extended use of “poor” drills the point home. It’s repetitive to the point of being almost silly, but that reinforces how insistent this narrator is about what they feel. They will not be swayed and, in fact, are entrenched in an opposite position. They’re talking about something bigger than mulch and plants, but we’ve all had this argument. It looks funny when you’re outside looking in, but if you’re the one defending the plants, then dammit, they’re fine.

165. Used to Haunt

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

The sorrowful “Used to Haunt” reflects on someone long gone and how we remember each other.

Track: “Used to Haunt”
Album: All Eternals Deck (2011)

“…People who get what we do feel passionately about it and want others to hear what they hear, but people who don’t groove to it really don’t dig it.” – John Darnielle

“Used to Haunt” plays over the credits of the movie Paper Towns, adapted from the John Green novel of the same name. John Green’s Twitter icon features him wearing the “I only listen to the Mountain Goats” shirt. He has 5.31 million followers and Paper Towns made 85 million dollars. On the day of this writing, Lin-Manuel Miranda posted a playlist on his Twitter called “Stay Alive” that ends with the Mountain Goats’ “Spent Gladiator 2.”

These two guys are two of the biggest people in American culture today, especially to younger people. In both cases, there’s a very good chance their audience hasn’t heard of the Mountain Goats. That’s why John Darnielle’s quote about “Used to Haunt” being the credits song for a major movie is so interesting. He then elaborates about the risks of using a band not everyone will connect with and how that can be alienating. It may not be strictly true that no one just “likes” the Mountain Goats, but it can definitely feel that way.

“Used to Haunt” is about memory. John Darnielle says it’s about “the sweet and the sad parts together.” You can feel the absence as the narrator says “long while since I felt this way // stand by the window, wait for day.” It reminds me of the (much) earlier “Cao Dai Blowout” as a narrator frets over the memory of their father. In “Used to Haunt” the narrator seems more welcoming of the memory, but in both cases it’s surprising and consuming.

164. The Only Thing I Know

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

Amid strumming and breezy harmonica, “The Only Thing I Know” confronts the totality of the end.

Track: “The Only Thing I Know”
Album: Orange Raja, Blood Royal (1995) and Ghana (1999)

The Orange Raja, Blood Royal songs are unique because of the accompaniment. Alastair Galbraith heard John Darnielle play live and thought he was so honest and inspiring that he wanted to work with him. It turned into four songs and a friendship. He shows up on other Mountain Goats songs, but he’s most recognizable here.

In an interview about the collaboration, John Darnielle says that these four songs were written in “a very particular time he knew lots of details about.” One of the beautiful things about John Darnielle is that a statement like that is extremely specific in origin, but extremely malleable to your own purposes. He means it one way, for sure, but it’s vague enough that these four songs can be confirmed to, yes, for sure, be about what you need them to be about.

The harmonica on “The Only Thing I Know” gives the feeling of a breeze. It weaves in and out and creates an almost lazy vibe through this very serious conversation. One character tells another that they know they’re leaving and that’s just reality. “That is just about the only thing I know about you,” they say, which is the kind of heartbreaking thought we use to wound others. You can imagine the pain in both directions as a lover admits that not only the closeness required for love is gone, but so is the familiarity required for even friendship.

John Darnielle’s delivery across Orange Raja, Blood Royal is almost haunting. He gives these narrators such a miserable view of their situations and he wants it to be inescapable. “How much do I love you,” he asks in “The Only Thing I Know,” but it feels more like a useless plea to get someone to stay than an actual admission of love.

162. Rain Song

Alex Russell Bitter Melon Farm , , , , , , , , ,

“Rain Song” sings the praises of one of John Darnielle’s peers and includes the unique rhyme of “hibachi” and “Callaci.”

Track: “Rain Song”
Album: Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

In 1994, a label called Union Pole Records released 700 copies of I Present This, a compilation album of eight songs. It features six bands I’m not aware of, “Rain Song” by the Mountain Goats, and “Waitress” by Refrigerator. You can buy a copy online. In the interest of disclosure, I haven’t, and I have found it impossible to otherwise hear “Waitress.”

Refrigerator matters in this context because it is Allen Callaci’s band. “Rain Song” exists solely to tell the listener that John Darnielle wishes he could sing like Allen Callaci. This is either funny because John Darnielle knew this would be on a compilation with the same guy or it’s funny because someone decided they had to go together. Either way works.

Allen Callaci comes up a few times through the liner notes and expanded universe of the Mountain Goats. He sings the final verses on “Lonesome Surprise.” He does have a unique voice. It’s worth looking up some Refrigerator albums, if for no other reason than to hear what John Darnielle heard in his voice.

“Rain Song” really is that simple. “Drop by drop // gallon by gallon // brother if I could sing // if I could sing like Allen” is as straightforward as John Darnielle gets. The liner notes on the reissue say as much again as John Darnielle says this song “takes it’s ball and goes home” after establishing that Allen Callaci is a great singer.

A full fourth of the song is John Darnielle’s intro. He describes either the morning or evening of January 24, 1994 and the lack of a title for “Rain Song.” The whole song is a reminder that John Darnielle has heroes and that small moments matter, so despite the straightforwardness of the message, it’s a worthy piece of the whole.

161. Werewolf Gimmick

Alex Russell Beat the Champ , , , , , , , , ,

A wrestler gives in to their baser instincts and goes primal in “Werewolf Gimmick.”

Track: “Werewolf Gimmick”
Album: Beat the Champ (2015)

The drums sell “Werewolf Gimmick.” Jon Wurster joined the Mountain Goats in 2007 and they haven’t been the same since. There are probably purists who think the Mountain Goats are only “real” with just John Darnielle and a bassist, but I can’t imagine that person could listen to “Werewolf Gimmick” and defend that position. There are plenty of songs that only work because they have a full band with horns and drums and everything, but “Werewolf Gimmick” is a 150-second explosion where the drums never let up for a second. It’ll wear you out just to listen to it once, in a good way.

Beat the Champ uses wrestling and wrestlers to talk about a variety of things, but “Werewolf Gimmick” is actually in the ring. It’s about a wrestler who portrays a werewolf and a heel determined to sell his act through intensity. Wrestling comes in many varieties. Sometimes it’s about the camp factor, but wrestlers like this werewolf think it’s about sincerity. Are these guys actually fighting for real, he wants us to wonder, and just maybe, only one of them knows that?

John Darnielle is at peak snarl here. He embodies his werewolf character when he describes the other wrestler as “some sniveling local baby face with an angle he can’t sell.” You can hear the twist in his mouth over “dial” in “get told to maybe dial it back, backstage later on” and if you like this brand of Goats song, this may be one of your favorites. John Darnielle sometimes says that the quiet ones are best, but if you like the rockers and screamers, you can’t do much better than “Werewolf Gimmick.”

160. I Will Grab You by the Ears

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

We are left to wonder what having one’s ears grabbed means in “I Will Grab You by the Ears.”

Track: “I Will Grab You by the Ears”
Album: Nothing for Juice (1996)

At an average of 20 shows a year, the Mountain Goats have played somewhere around 500 live shows at the time of this writing. It’s really impossible to say for sure, though you can begin to put together a catalog. The fan base for a group like this is obsessive and given to cataloging, but you can never be sure you’ve caught everything. There will be some benefit show that John Darnielle played last minute for 18 people or something from the early days when no one was keeping meticulous records and it will stop you from being absolutely sure about your history.

It is with those caveats that I say that “I Will Grab You by the Ears” has never been played live. I obviously can’t be 100% sure, but everything seems to support my claim. It’s a short song buried in the middle of a long album from 1996, with songs like “It Froze Me,” “Going to Kansas,” and “Going to Scotland.” There are some songs that John Darnielle seems to put out in the world and never revisit. Given the vastness of his work, that’s not surprising.

The main point of contention around “I Will Grab You by the Ears” seems to be the title. A narrator walks around a lake and tells someone “I will grab you by the ears // and you will know something.” John Darnielle snarls the lines a little bit, and combined with the deliberate, slow strumming it seems somewhat like a threat. It sounds to me like an idiom that John Darnielle created, but it might also be a physical threat. Either way, the narrator seems determined to get their point across, though we don’t find out what it is.

159. Beach House

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

“Beach House” is about the danger of seals (yes, seals), but it’s also about how love clouds our judgement.

Track: “Beach House”
Album: Hot Garden Stomp (1993)

The typical Mountain Goats song is about a miserable and/or lonely person processing one or more events that have led them to their current state. This is an oversimplification, but the themes of loneliness, displacement, and fear about not making great use of time and relationships are consistent in the catalog.

It hasn’t always been that way. The early Mountain Goats albums have more “funny” songs, which is always the way John Darnielle describes them. He’s told a story several times on stage about playing songs at an open mic in his early days and hearing someone tell their friend that “this guy is funny.” Obviously present-day John Darnielle doesn’t want to be known that way, but the songs exist all the same. He appreciates the fans and understands the devotion to the “old stuff,” so every now and again he digs into the back catalog and plays something like “Beach House.”

“Beach House” is about seals. The beat is catchy, but really the song will stick with you because 11 of the 16 lines include the word “seal.” The narrator is insistent with someone that they need to respect the power and hatred that is innate in seals. That probably sounds ridiculous to you, but you really need to hear it to believe it. “Now when I say that the seal is vicious, I use the term advisedly,” is a truly inspired line.

John Darnielle says this narrator is “neurotic, but not psychotic” and that they want someone they love to not move away. Many early Goats narrators are in love and don’t know how to express it well, but I can’t think of a worse plan than “you can’t leave me, what if the seals get you?”

158. It’s All Here in Brownsville

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

Two people travel to the end of the road in “It’s All Here in Brownsville,” but no farther than that.

Track: “It’s All Here in Brownsville”
Album: Full Force Galesburg (1997)

Brownsville, Texas is home to 183,000 people and is the 131st largest city in the United States. It is directly on the United States-Mexico border. More than a third of its citizens live below the poverty line.

Full Force Galesburg is an album obsessed with location. One wonders if the extreme poverty in Brownsville informs the choice to use it for “It’s All Here in Brownsville” at all, or if that’s just a sad detail that changes the way the song comes across. It’s certainly relevant that it’s a border town as our couple wanders around in the heat and ponders the significance of the town in their lives.

“Why do we come down to Brownsville, year after year after year?” The couple from Galesburg wonders this out loud and seemingly finds no answer. This is the last track on the album, but the Mountain Goats often exit albums with their characters pondering rather than finding answers. Songs like “Pale Green Things” and “Alpha Rats Nest” are examples of this, where you would expect people to have figured everything out and yet, it ends up being more complex than that.

“It’s All Here in Brownsville” ends with a repetition of “it’s all coming apart again.” Destruction and destructive thought is rampant on Galesburg, so this ending is only fitting. It’s also a compelling place to leave the couple that’s wandered around the United States all over the album. It’s possible to read this as a love song despite the dark ending, but it seems more likely that they’re going to keep avoiding their doomed state. Warm scenery and extreme gestures like traveling to “where nothing starts” every year will keep you going even when you shouldn’t.

157. Young Caesar 2000

Alex Russell Zopilote Machine , , , , , , ,

A boy king ponders his defensive options and decides on violence in “Young Caesar 2000.”

Track: “Young Caesar 2000”
Album: Zopilote Machine (1994)

“Young Caesar 2000” is straightforward. A twelve-year-old boy becomes king and his kingdom is vast. He struggles with leadership and fails to establish the level of power and respect that he feels he is due. He establishes a plan which has been effective for as long as people have led other people, which is to say that he’s going to kill everyone who disagrees with him until there’s no one left.

It’s a short song that acts as a critique of blind leadership in both directions. You have to feel for the people who cause the narrator to say “now I’m thirteen and no one takes me seriously.” No thirteen-year-old generally should be taken seriously, and considering our king here ascended the throne at twelve, they likely have a year’s worth of example behavior to support removing him. You also have to feel for the narrator. If someone came to you at twelve and supported the natural solipsism of youth by making you the leader of all the world you knew to exist, wouldn’t part of you feel like it was about time?

The chugging guitar and raspy delivery give “Young Caesar 2000” a revenge song feel. Your first few listens you probably will grin and picture the boy king’s actions. We don’t get to see the actual deeds, but we can assume from history that either the king will succeed in silencing his doubters through violence or he will be usurped by them. Either way, especially with “Caesar” in the name, we know the stakes are high. We also can infer that neither side will win for long, since a society that found a way to crown a boy can find a way to explain a very short rule.