the mountain goats

594. Song for God

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

“Song for God” almost doesn’t exist and didn’t get released for lack of one simple word.

Track: “Song for God”
Album: Unreleased

John Darnielle has said that “Song for God” was cut from All Hail West Texas. Beyond that, he’s said that it was cut, maybe not solely because of, but because of the line “it takes two days or better to walk across its length.” It’s supposed to be “it takes two days or better to drive across its length.” I have driven from New Mexico to Louisiana and yes, it does take two days or better to drive it. You probably could have worked that out on your own. But then again, you probably would have just recorded it again and fixed “walk” to “drive” the next time. But you and I are not John Darnielle.

I don’t think “Song for God” is better than any song on All Hail West Texas and I think it makes sense to leave it off. It has some beautiful turns of phrase in it, especially “no way of saying what they’re supposed to represent” as the narrator watches the dust and wonders what it all means. It’s a lovely little song but the story of this exclusion is so fascinating. It fits with so many other stories about John Darnielle’s mercurial approach to album construction but it also makes you think about all the things that are on the proverbial cutting room floor. “Song for God” is nice, but just imagine everything you’ll never hear! It’s beautiful, in a way, and I love that, despite my nature and love of cataloging.

593. Deserters

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

The unreleased demo “Deserters” sets the stage for We Shall All Be Healed and draws a picture of one night in that world.

Track: “Deserters”
Album: Unreleased (released by John Darnielle online as a holiday gift in 2005)

The characters in “Deserters” are the characters that would become We Shall All Be Healed. John Darnielle released the song online in 2005 and said as much, calling it a demo that “sparked the We Shall All Be Healed album” and added that it “has a number of images that are sort of touchstones for me.” It feels like a cousin to “Home Again Garden Grove” to me, another song about battle plans and the insistence of moving forward even among destruction. Here we have similar paranoia and dark hopes for the future and a sense that not just what comes next, but what comes right now is going to be very bad.

The duo hang out and watch a televangelist and spend some time “trying to better ourselves” before “giving up after one or two tries.” They use the knowledge that the cops are done trying to bust up the local element and the presence of a map of the surrounding area as enough of a sign that the “future’s disarmingly bright.” We know that’s probably not the case, but it’s hard to argue with the findings.

“Deserters” has such an eerie vibe, but the most powerful piece of it, to me, is the follow up line to a wild claim that the local high school is full of Japanese gangsters. “Everyone, everyone knows it,” our narrator says, echoing so many people you have probably met in your life who double down in times like these. We’ll hear a lot more about these folks and folks like them in future songs, but we’ll never get a clearer picture of these nights than that, right there.

592. Going to Brazil

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

One of the oldest Mountain Goats songs is “Going to Brazil,” and it exists as a memory of times gone by.

Track: “Going to Brazil”
Album: Unreleased

One of the top results as of this writing for “Going to Brazil” is a horrible AI website that seems to churn out three paragraphs about every song. Above that, for me, is the wiki, which includes this show in 2010 in Oregon, where John Darnielle seems to have played part of the song during what I would assume is the solo set in the middle of a live show. There is also an archived mention on the defunct forums for the band where John Darnielle confirmed it as the first song in the series of “Going to…” songs. As of this afternoon as I write this, that is just about all there is in the world about this one.

I find that AI site so repellant because it has no heart. The person who updated the wiki with a setlist from a venue in Oregon from 13 years ago to make sure everyone knows this one song virtually no one else has ever heard was played, partially, at a show, has heart. It will only get harder as time goes on to confirm anything. For example, the comments on this one YouTube upload of this song are people arguing (politely) about the veracity of the claim that this is the oldest “Going to…” song. These are people who care, but more than that they are people who have spent time wondering about this stuff. These are people who listen to “Going to Brazil” and have wonder. Reward that wonder, when you see it. Experience it, when you can. The song itself is a nice piece of the past, but I am consumed today by the thought of the people who care about it.

591. Letter From a Motel

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

The Alpha Couple spends some time apart in “Letter From a Motel.”

Track: “Letter From a Motel”
Album: Unreleased

“Letter From a Motel” is an Alpha Couple song, for whatever that is worth, though the detail of “three daughters” complicates that reality. The Alpha Couple very famously has no children, as you might know from a song with that name, but they also exist inside and outside time. There is not one clear Alpha Couple storyline apart from Tallahassee, which also conflicts with some of the older songs in small ways. Once upon a time I would have wanted to break down those differences here and to wonder about “true continuity” or something but as with a lot of other things, this is mostly about vibes.

Our narrator is in a motel, one assumes, and they receive a letter from a partner that includes a picture of their home. “I did not mean to say what I’m saying now // if we’re gonna talk about what intentions were” contains so much more than most lines and it really opens up the mind of the person we’re dealing with, here. We can extrapolate that this person has abandoned their family, which includes three daughters in this version of this couple, and we certainly feel for the person sending this letter. But there’s just enough here to wonder, what about these photos causes that person to feel like the windows are getting soft with heat and that going back threatens their stability? Are those just the lies we tell ourselves to cover our own bad decisions?

590. Going to Palestine

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

Through brief images we get a snapshot of an evening in “Going to Palestine.”

Track: “Going to Palestine”
Album: Unreleased

There’s no further connection, I guess, but the Ingmar Bergman film Persona includes a scene where one of the characters watches a series of hard-to-watch images on television. Another watches a self-immolation during the Vietnam War. The film is about duality and how we view ourselves and, beyond that, who we even are, when we really get down to it. “Going to Palestine” opens with a character similarly hearing about a self-immolation that lights up the sky, poetically, generally, but brutally, here. “I could not stand to hear them say so,” our narrator says. They then describe some orange trees, which is certainly not a reference to anything but may call to mind that once upon a time, if they weren’t going to be the Mountain Goats, John Darnielle’s band was going to be called the Orange Trees. One imagines we wouldn’t be talking about this in that timeline, but maybe?

“Going to Palestine” is a live-only song that follows a template a lot of the Goats songs from the early 90s followed. One person tells us a shocking or surprising detail and then tells us what they see and hear. I tend to think about what might have inspired the imagery when I hear a song like this. Likely there was never someone with an actual orange blossom in their hair, but can’t you see it? What I love most about a short song like this is picturing the temperature on that night and trying to see this person. In the right mood, listening to this one, you can do it.

589. For the Krishnacore Bands

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle channels his inner Craig Finn to tell a very specific story in “For the Krishnacore Bands.”

Track: “For the Krishnacore Bands”
Album: Unreleased

John Darnielle has said that “For the Krishnacore Bands” is an attempt to write a song about a specific genre of music in the style of a Craig Finn song. That alone explains the mention of “Creeper Dave” at the end, because what is more of a Hold Steady thing than an unexplained, specific mention of a local that we never hear from again? In that vein, we also hear about the Fireside Bowl, a venue in Chicago where I once spent a bizarre New Year’s Eve and also some pretty good, unrelated afternoons.

Craig Finn, and the Holy Steady overall, writes about specific circumstances, mostly in Minnesota and surrounding areas, that feel like your own experiences if you tilt the camera a little bit. You didn’t meet Jester and Jules, of course, but you met someone who you only know as a first name that probably isn’t their real name. This isn’t your story, but it’s a story that rhymes. That specificity helps a lot with John Darnielle’s writing, as you almost certainly do not know what Krishnacore is. Maybe you do and maybe that’s projection, but I think the odds are you only have the context given in this song.

That’s enough, though! You hear the journey of someone trying to tell a message. John Darnielle was a member in his youth and even if you don’t know a thing about Krishna outside of this song, you don’t need to in order to follow it. This is about the story. Maybe you relate to it, even just the feeling of doubling down despite no one getting it. I suspect that part might ring true.

588. Heel Turn 1

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

The vibes are different between “Heel Turn 1” and “Heel Turn 2” but either way, you watch a transformation.

Track: “Heel Turn 1”
Album: Unreleased

You can hear the story behind “Heel Turn 1,” sorta, at this show in Alabama in 2018. You can then hear John Darnielle read the description of the song straight off of the Mountain Goats Wiki, which is a little surreal, as he looks up the lyrics. I’m on the record as finding these moments charming and this one is no exception. This is the 588th post on this site alone and we aren’t even talking about some of the more secret tracks, so you’ve gotta cut him some slack for not immediately remembering an obscure song that he purposefully did not release. I certainly don’t know every word, either. I love these moments.

“Heel Turn 2” is the much more brutal sequel that serves as the centerpiece for Beat the Champ. The former version is jangly and fun, in that way that a song about making someone beg for mercy can be fun through the stylings of John Darnielle and company. I have a buddy who loves the Goats almost as much as I do and he calls this one one of his all-time favorites.

Through “Heel Turn 1” we see a hero become a villain and, beyond that, we see their justification. The other one hit me first, they say, and it spirals from there. “Always help old ladies cross the street” is a cliché, but that’s the point. We need broad strokes in wrestling. We need to know, from the back of the auditorium (or gym, or VFW, or what have you) that this is the hero. Then we need to see them flip.

587. Tyler Lambert’s Grave

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

The Mountain Goats ask us to think beyond the headlines in “Tyler Lambert’s Grave.”

Track: “Tyler Lambert’s Grave”
Album: Unreleased (released by John Darnielle on Twitter)

Tyler Lambert was the son of Dana Plato, the former child star and subject of “Song for Dana Plato,” another Mountain Goats song. Dana Plato passed just a few years after that song was written and the band played it live a few times after her passing. The message is similar, though the tone obviously isn’t, and the sequence of events explains that. “Tyler Lambert’s Grave” was written, obviously, with the title, after his passing. Even with that difference and with the obvious differences in how the songs sound, these are more or less about the same thing.

A common thread through the real people that feature in Mountain Goats songs is that many of them appear to have simple stories but aren’t necessarily just what you know. Dana Plato and Tyler Lambert both died by suicide. There are dozens of songs that tie back to this idea of seeing yourself in someone else’s tragedy and variations of asking the listener to go one step beyond a cause of death. In the case of Tyler Lambert’s mother, maybe you know she was a child star and something about a robbery. Maybe that doesn’t naturally lead you to the hunger that causes you to risk everything for what seems to be very little. Maybe that doesn’t ask you to “step outside the shadow // of your great catastrophe,” but let it.

The Seattle News article where John Darnielle talked about this song is a dead link now. The People article sourced for the photo in the song is a dead link. The Tweet where this was released will, odds are, be a dead link soon. It all boils down to the simple pieces when the context is gone, so you have to take those steps yourself.

586. Going Invisible

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

We see behind the curtain to find someone preparing to take a small step in “Going Invisible.”

Track: “Going Invisible”
Album: Unreleased (posted as a demo by John Darnielle online in 2008)

Just under three years ago I wrote about “Going Invisible 2,” the “sequel” song to “Going Invisible,” which you probably could work out yourself based on the titles. The second one was part of In League with Dragons, an album that has aged very well in my estimation and is one of the best of the “modern” era. I initially called the second song an escalation from the first, with grander threats to burn everything down and booming instrumentation as compared to the quiet guitar and the almost “despondent” vocals. Not to take issue with myself, but I wonder upon listening to the first one if I still agree with that, exactly.

“Going Invisible,” the first one, was an unreleased track from Get Lonely that John Darnielle said was “a personal favorite.” As we reach the end of the discussion of non-album tracks (we have about 40 to go, if you’re counting) I have to keep going back to this idea of album construction and what it means to compare the songs that “made it” with those that didn’t. In this case, we know why: John Darnielle says the studio version they recorded wasn’t quite right. Get Lonely is, arguably, the most delicate Mountain Goats album, so you can understand that approach.

Today I would pick a different word than “despondent.” Certainly someone could find a better word, but this is someone who is more afraid — they are “fairly nearly ready” to go outside — than angry. Rage is an easier emotion to access than fear and this person is showing us the preparation it takes even to go out into a world that you’re still certain will not accept you, and not only that, but why would they, if they knew what was inside?

585. Going to Buffalo

Alex Russell Unreleased , , , , , , ,

Our narrator in “Going to Buffalo” has a lot to say about their partner, but it feels like an incomplete picture.

Track: “Going to Buffalo”
Album: Unreleased

At an Extra Glenns show in 1995 at The Empty Bottle, Franklin Bruno asked John Darnielle if he wanted to play a song that Bruno had just heard for the first time a few hours earlier. You can hear that here. The only other version of “Going to Buffalo” is part of a leak that someone found through a music sharing site. If it hadn’t been played live I would probably leave it off this list and honestly, it gets really murky here as we get into the final fifty songs.

The Empty Bottle is the first place I ever saw the Mountain Goats (though not that show) and it’s a really great venue, still. The Goats are playing bigger venues these days, but I encourage you to stop in for a beer at least if you’re ever in the area. The Goats played there more than a few times and while this was technically an Extra Glenns show, it’s the same vibe.

The two versions are slightly different and some lyrics get transposed but both versions find a typical Goats/Glenns narrator bitterly commenting about a partner, but, notably, also saying they plan to nuzzle up against them. We don’t have the whole story here, as we often don’t, but I imagine they protest too much.