the mountain goats

024. Are You Cleaning Off the Stone?

Alex Russell Hot Garden Stomp , , , , , ,

Two decades later, “Are You Cleaning Off the Stone?” sounds a little rough but still very sweet.

Track: “Are You Cleaning Off the Stone?”
Album: Hot Garden Stomp (1993)

Hot Garden Stomp is a strange release, because unlike most of the early albums there isn’t a clear standout song. Even Taboo VI: The Homecoming, the very first release from 1991 that John Darnielle has repeatedly panned, has “Going to Alaska.” John has told people for years to not look up the first album, but “Going to Alaska” still gets played live now. Nothing from Hot Garden Stomp is really in the rotation anymore.

“Beach House” and “Sun Song” are indicative of the early Mountain Goats style. They’re a little silly, but they’re also dramatic, wordy looks at difficult situations, when considered as metaphors. Well, maybe not “Beach House,” which is mostly about how vicious seals can be, but “Sun Song” is certainly an early prototype for later, more serious songs like “Alpha Rat’s Nest.”

“Are You Cleaning Off the Stone?” fits nicely with the rest of the album and with 1993-era Mountain Goats, then. You can hear The Bright Mountain Choir, the name for the female vocalists from early Goats recordings, and they sound fantastic. There’s no denying the roughness of the cassette recording, but devotes eventually learn to take that roughness as the price of looking through a portal to two decades ago.

The song is a simple one, but that doesn’t detract from the sweetness. My favorite interpretation is that the “stone” is a headstone, and this is a dead character speaking to someone they loved in life. Maybe that’s the case (it would explain how they can’t “hear”), but even if you don’t buy that you have to give it up for one of the all-time great turns of phrase in the catalog: “They tell me your eyes are the same color as they always were // That kind of information just floors me.”

023. Philippians 3:20-21

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

“Philippians 3:20-21” deals with the theological question of how a just God could allow a person to be suicidal.

Track: “Philippians 3:20-21”
Album: The Life of the World to Come (2009)

Philippians 3:20-21 talks of Jesus making the bodies of humans like his own after their death. It’s open to interpretation beyond that, but it generally means that you’ll join Jesus and be redeemed (physically and otherwise) with him once you die. The song “Philippians 3:20-21” is about how anything that requires you to die to feel better is a really tough sell.

John Darnielle wrote the song about David Foster Wallace, who hung himself because he couldn’t stand to be alive. The chemicals in his brain conspired against him, as they do in everyone with some kind of mental illness. John worked professionally with the mentally ill as a younger man and it’s a cause that is close to his heart. For Wallace specifically, he has said that he thinks one of the most difficult messages of Christianity is that it only deals with redemption and solutions post-mortem. In the song, “nice people said he was with God now,” which is a polite way to speak of the dead, but it didn’t do anything for him while he was alive.

For a person whose life is plagued by thoughts of suicide and self-harm, the idea that death will provide a spiritual respite is cold comfort. The rest of the chorus talks of the voices of angels being “smoke alarms,” since they signal the fire of his death but don’t do anything to stop the flames from coming. John has said that he thinks it’s difficult to understand how a kind and loving God could not give a person the chemistry needed to fend off dark thoughts and survive, and the “neuroleptics and electric shock” of “Philippians 3:20-21” are his way of saying it would be easier to believe if the salvation worked a little bit earlier.

022. Mole

Alex Russell We Shall All Be Healed , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle flips the perspective of a real dark moment from his life to look at one of his own lowest points in “Mole.”

Track: “Mole”
Album: We Shall All Be Healed (2004)

People think it’s the frantic, screaming songs that mean the most, but John Darnielle has always said that it’s the quiet ones that matter. Songs like “Waving at You” and “Mole” speak of the darkest parts. When performing “Mole” live, John will sometimes step away from the microphone and quietly recite the song into what rapidly becomes a silent audience. It’s more like a prayer than a song.

“Mole,” like the rest of We Shall All Be Healed, is about a group of drug addicts in the Pacific Northwest. They don’t fear death at all, but they deeply fear getting caught. In “All Up the Seething Coast,” the narrator is clear that “a thousand dead friends won’t stop me” because death doesn’t matter. What matters is getting caught, because then you will have to be alive without drugs.

In “Mole” a character has his head wrapped in bandages and is handcuffed to a bed. The reality behind the song’s creation is necessary to fully understand it. John has said that he is the handcuffed man, and that’s it’s based on something that really happened to him. He woke up handcuffed to a bed and spoke to a nurse he knew, only to find that he wasn’t going to be let out this time.

“Mole” is very minimal. The strum in the background feels like an IV drip, slowly falling in behind the lyrical description of a man chained to a bed. The chorus of “I am a mole / sticking his head above the surface of the earth” reminds us that this character has had very little time to consider his situation. He’s only interested in the cycle he’s created for himself, and in this dark moment his biggest fear is that they might try to stop it.

021. Tollund Man

Alex Russell Sweden , , , , , , ,

 

2000 years ago, “Tollund Man” met with the end of his life in a bog in Denmark with his eyes closed and a peaceful look.

Track: “Tollund Man”
Album: Sweden (1995)

A lot of these songs happen in California and Florida, but for “Tollund Man” we need to go back to Denmark in the 4th century, BCE. The real Tollund Man was hung in a bog for indeterminate reasons, though historians believe it to be a case of human sacrifice. He was found, nearly perfectly preserved, by peat farmers in 1950. The body was over 2,000 years old, but it was so well preserved that everyone believed it to be a recent murder victim.

“Tollund Man” the song describes the man’s last day. He eats a meal of “cooked wild grasses” and waits for his people to come and condemn him to death. It’s very simply laid out, but that doesn’t cut into the melancholia of “goodbye cold air, I am going away” or the final “goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.” It’s the perfect kind of tale: not fully decipherable as it is lost to history but clearly a sad end. Historians believe he was a sacrifice rather than a criminal because his eyes and mouth were closed. He looks at peace.

When the Goats play “Tollund Man” live they often add extra verses. That’s not uncommon for the band — for a bit the “alcohol” in “This Year” got replaced with “heroin” — but the “Tollund Man” additions are special. The Annotated Mountain Goats put together a good list, but my favorite is the excerpt from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73. I won’t be so bold as to interpret a sonnet here, but John belts out “there’s no mercy, which makes your love more strong // the love that, well, which you will have to leave before too long.” So many Goats characters can’t figure out how to deal in life, but possibly only Tollund Man found a way to leave this world at peace.

020. New Zion

Alex Russell Heretic Pride , , , , , , ,

 

The cult of “New Zion” isn’t important, but the way we think of our past selves as other people certainly is.

Track: “New Zion”
Album: Heretic Pride (2008)

First things first, Heretic Pride is a unique album to talk about because it’s illustrated. John Darnielle wrote descriptions of each song and asked the artist Jeffrey Lewis to illustrate them. It’s one of the most fascinating pieces of Mountain Goats art that exists. The art is spectacular and it’s possibly the most complete discussion of an album in the band’s history.

The source text, then, says “New Zion” is about a cult that doesn’t exist, but it’s also about John Darnielle’s fascination with the way something can consume you the moment you become aware of it. He describes “cultmania” in the illustration and laments that the world has fewer “bizarre screeds” now. The character in “New Zion” has lost their faith but not their people. They remember the flash or the importance of religion and remembers how it all started “like the memory of a movie.” Those days are gone.

As much as the song is about their present in the cult, it’s about the past that they can’t quite summon up. It’s a literal cult, but it’s also the feeling of being fully reborn as a new person with no concept of the old you. As the protagonist says they “dreamed a dream of where I come from” you can imagine the difficulty of recalling a past that they’re supposed to be beyond. The specifics of the cult aren’t important — the song mentions ravens and robes, so you get a general sense — but the general nature of transition is. As with so many Goats songs, “New Zion” talks about how transition is painful whether it’s voluntary or not. They’re waiting for someone to come save them physically, but they’re concerned that it’s too late to save everything else.

019. Narakaloka

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

 

 

In “Narakaloka,” a dying person fears the darkest parts of the afterlife and attempts to change their ways just before death.

Track: “Narakaloka”
Album: New Asian Cinema (1998)

If you’ve only heard the best-known songs by the Mountain Goats, you could pick a worse place to start your deeper research than New Asian Cinema. It’s a five song EP from 1998 that’s reasonably accessible even for people who haven’t yet bought in to the lo-fi world of the early Goats. “Korean Bird Paintings” and “Treetop Song” are instantly recognizable messages about hope in unlikely places. “Golden Jackal Song” and “Cao Dai Blowout” are metaphors, but they aren’t necessarily complicated ones. It’s “Narakaloka” that requires some consideration to decipher.

Naraka is the Hindu equivalent of Hell, and loka loosely translates to “world” or “realm.” From a purely linguistic standpoint, “Narakaloka” is the realm of the afterlife reserved for the worst of the worst. The song is delivered from the perspective of a person who is condemned to death and is concerned with how they’ve lived their life. They’re certainly dying, because even though “the doctor says I’ve got 30 days left at most” is the dark punchline to the song, this isn’t the kind of character that would benefit from lying.

John Darnielle has said at live shows that the song specifically refers to the concept that “Narakaloka” is the part of Hell reserved for those who denied food to the poor in life. Taking that in mind, it’s easy to imagine the character here getting a diagnosis and wondering if their house is in order enough to avoid Naraka. They’re growing cabbages and making French toast with imported cinnamon, but they may not be the sort of person who would have done that beforehand. They won’t be there to see the full fruits of their labor, but they do hope that this little bit of selflessness will spare them in eternity.

018. Going to Monaco

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

 

In “Going to Monaco,” one lover strikes a final blow against another after a perceived wrong we aren’t permitted to see.

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

The end of a relationship between two people who both want their relationship to end is fine. There are still emotions wrapped up in that kind of an ending, but it’s an easier break when both people want to leave. It’s far harder, obviously, when there’s a difference of opinion. When one person is in love and another is not, that’s where you have “Going to Monaco.”

The chorus of “and you ask me to hold you // that’s the devil’s work” is, for lack of a better word, mean. There’s spite in this character and it comes through in the snarl when John Darnielle sings the song. The guitar is slow and plodding and the whole thing feels defiant. They’re mad at this person standing on the beach with them, but in “neither of us runs for cover” we learn that they are both going to see this through to the end.

“Going to Monaco” ends without a resolution, but it’s easy to fill in their future. One fights anger and defiance by demanding one last emotional gesture, the kind of thing we often do when we’re backed into a corner. It is the cigarette before the firing squad, and since the other feels wronged, their only remaining move is to deny the smoke. The world is aflame around them and we’re not here long enough to figure out who really made the mistake here — did something happen or are they just like this — but we recognize our own defiance in how they deal with their conflict. The world will continue to burn and one of them will get their way, but not both.

017. Have to Explode

Alex Russell Tallahassee , , , , , , , ,

“Have to Explode” represents final moments and how no one ever realizes they’re in one until it’s too late to react.

Track: “Have to Explode”
Album: Tallahassee (2002)

The most interesting thing about “Have to Explode” is its placement on Tallahassee. It’s track eleven, sandwiched in between “International Small Arms Traffic Blues” and “Old College Try.” Those two are as close as Tallahassee gets to pure love songs. They both use drastic comparisons to searchlights in Hell and powder kegs to show that the Alpha Couple, the couple in Tallahassee and so many other songs, really was once in love. They still are, in fact, though that love is something else now.

The screaming, angry, drunken songs like “Oceanographer’s Choice” and “No Children” get all the love because it’s more fun to be angry than it is to be sad. It’s important to live in balance, however, and “Have to Explode” walks the listener from one almost-love song to another. It’s tense, like the fuse it describes and the explosion it forecasts. The entire action of the song is the Alpha Couple alone in the bathroom, sweating out booze that they rightly call “poison” for themselves. They stare at the towels they stole from the hotel and stay up all night not really talking to each other. It’s before the dawn of “Old College Try” when they make their last stand and before the midnight of “Oceanographer’s Choice” where they finally say what they already know in “Have to Explode.”

We never recognize these moments when they happen in our lives. We can only look back at last chances, and the Alpha Couple is no different. It may already be too late, but this is the song for that final night you remember. This is for the last moments in a relationship that aren’t necessarily happy, but they aren’t yet what they will become.

016. Torch Song

Alex Russell The Hound Chronicles , , , , , ,

In the early “Torch Song” two lovers share a moment, and in 1996 John Darnielle comments on rare music on Swedish radio.

Track: “Torch Song”
Album: The Hound Chronicles (1992)

In 1996, in between a Rickie Lee Jones cover and then-unreleased “Minnesota,” John Darnielle played “Torch Song” on a Swedish radio station. In the interview the host asks John if he will play one more, John says he will play one or two, and he plays four. He introduces “Torch Song” with “unless you have the very early tapes, you haven’t heard this one.”

The early fans collected tapes and live shows to complete collections as they sought out rarities like “Doll Song” and “You’re in Maya.” A lot of the early Goats songs are still only rumored to exist, and fans know the names of songs they’ve never heard and may never hear. There are different schools of thought on if those days were better or worse, but YouTube and Archive.org have opened up the catalog. There are still some songs with mystical names like “8 to 20 on a Weapons Charge” that will likely never see the digital light of day, but you can more or less hear everything, now.

Almost no one has a physical copy of The Hound Chronicles, but the digital world allows you to hear the tape version or the one from that Swedish interview. “Torch Song” is a frantic song about the comparison of the heat of actual light and the body heat of a lover’s fingertips “like a torch.” Like a lot of the super-early stuff, it’s here-and-gone fast, but it’s the version in that Swedish interview that’s worthy of note. The host says that even though that’s “an old one” (in 1996), he thinks he’s heard it. John is insistent that he likely hasn’t, and he was probably right. The world has changed, but to truly enjoy the very early Mountain Goats, one must remember how rare these once were.

015. Riches and Wonders

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

 

“Riches and Wonders” sounds like a love song at first, but hides darker truths about our fears of intimacy.

Track: “Riches and Wonders”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2002)

All Hail West Texas just might be the quintessential Mountain Goats album. It’s the bridge between the original lo-fi and the evolution of John Darnielle as a lyricist. Songs like “The Mess Inside” and “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton” define the band to this day, over a decade after their original release. There’s more fire and intensity on other tracks, but “Riches and Wonders” hits the desperate, sad, longing notes harder than it originally appears to, allowing it to burrow in upon multiples listens.

The strumming tells you the general feeling, but it’s the voice crack over “I want to go home // but I am home” that will hit you like a hammer. From the opening “our love gorges on the alcohol we feed it” you know you’re dealing with people who haven’t fully adjusted to each other. Love is often expressed through song as difficult to get right, but capable of defeating all troubles. That’s not the case, and these two definitely know that.

Some moments, like “we stay up all night” and “we are strong, we are faithful” almost suggest a passion distinct enough to conquer the difficulties of the cast of All Hail West Texas. The reality shines through in the most telling lyrics: “you find shelter somewhere in me // I find great comfort in you.” That sounds nice, but what they’re really saying is that they don’t know what part of them could provide safe emotional harbor to anyone (see “Autoclave” for a much more direct version of this feeling) and they’re finding comfort, not love. These two are “making it work” but they have no delusions about that being what love is supposed to be like.