transcendental youth

461. Transcendental Youth

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , ,

The cast of the album winds down on the season and contemplates life in the song “Transcendental Youth.”

Track: “Transcendental Youth”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

John Darnielle has said that the title track from Transcendental Youth is about the feeling of a gray, sad winter in Portland. It’s also about spending time with another person in a place like that during a time when the outside world seems so hostile that it gets into how you feel about yourself. There are a lot of Mountain Goats songs that would fit this description, but the specificity of weather as a catalyst is unique.

Darnielle once told a crowd in Seattle that the Pacific Northwest winter brings this on because it’s dark and gray and people try to act like it isn’t a big thing. The Midwest doesn’t allow for this because no one can pretend a driving blizzard in twenty below weather isn’t a problem, it’s an actual disaster. I’ve only lived in climates where winter is either nothing at all (the South) or horrific (Chicago), but I can see what he means. As I’m writing this it’s very cold here, but not so cold that you eliminate going outside as a possibility. That has a certain kind of sadness to it.

The entire album seems to be about hope, for me, and “Transcendental Youth” the song is no different. It’s never been my favorite song on the album, but it really does work better in the context of the meaning behind it. Sure, the characters are wishing snow away literally, but they’re also reflecting on the things in their life that will still be there after the weather clears up.

460. In Memory of Satan

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , , ,

A narrator stays inside in multiple ways in “In Memory of Satan.”

Track: “In Memory of Satan”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

There are hundreds of religious references in Mountain Goats songs. Some of them are about literal Satan, but more often these are meant to make you think of darkness as an extreme. Even the most famous one, “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton,” is not actually about praising a literal devil. These are about not fitting in, in a way, and they’re about what you feel akin to when you go inward. Sometimes you feel like you’re forced to do that, but characters in Mountain Goats songs often feel like it’s the only rational response to the world.

“In Memory of Satan” finds someone literally inside painting, but metaphorically inside because they feel closer to the dark than to the light. “But no one screams, ’cause it’s just me // locked up in myself // never gonna get free” is extremely bleak, but the delivery lightens up the intent slightly. This is not a song about permanent darkness so much as the emotions that make it feel that way. It’s also about the idea that you can come to terms with some things being temporal, but you are going to be you forever. We leave the song on a call to a friend, which you can interpret many different ways. I’ve always felt the important takeaway here is that you should try your best to get perspective even in these locked-in moments, especially about the parts that might change and those that cannot.

459. The Diaz Brothers

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , , , ,

“The Diaz Brothers” isn’t really about the Diaz brothers, it’s about the people you never get to see.

Track: “The Diaz Brothers”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

How many times have you heard “The Diaz Brothers?” If you have been a fan of the Mountain Goats to any degree for more than about ten years as of this writing, that number is probably very high. It’s just one of those songs that you can come back to again and again. It might be one of the better choices to play for a new fan, except that you’d have to say the titular brothers are minor characters from Scarface.

Scarface is a modern classic, sure, but it’s got a weird spot in culture. The violence of the film disgusted people and the message of the film tends to get either lost or completely reversed, depending on your analysis. The Diaz brothers aren’t even in it, they’re just referenced as characters. John Darnielle was watching Scarface and his infant child smiled at the mention and thus we have this song.

As for what the characters are doing in “The Diaz Brothers,” I think you can largely hand wave it away. The point is the characters in the film don’t get any screen time, they’re just guys that matter in a cosmic sense but never show up. That idea, not the broader plot of Scarface, is what’s compelling. We aren’t the main character and neither are they, but that doesn’t mean we can’t spend a little time going deeper on what they’re doing.

458. Harlem Roulette

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , , ,

“Harlem Roulette” is more-or-less a true story, but it’s also just an incredible piece of lyrical craft.

Track: “Harlem Roulette”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

There’s a really interesting version of “Harlem Roulette” that’s worth seeing from a Pitchfork session in 2012 that you can still find online. John Darnielle describes Frankie Lymon’s story and why it led to this song (and one particular YouTube commenter gets really mad at very minor details, as they do) and why that sadness is so interesting. This version is solo, but there’s something about the emotion there that makes it worth hearing even without the depth of the studio version. I challenge you to not feel it in your throat when you hear that version of the line “leave a little mark on something, maybe.”

You don’t need anyone to explain “Harlem Roulette” to you, really. It is the story, more or less, of Frankie Lymon, but it’s also the story of what might happen to someone who might get famous and might burn too bright. You can put that on John Darnielle as a self-insert of a potential fear, but given his obsession with other figures who fit in this trope, I think it’s more likely that the story just appeals to him.

There are five or six lines in “Harlem Roulette” that I want to call out as among the best Darnielle has even written, but none more than “even awful dreams are good dreams // if you’re doing it right.” I think there might be the full story of your Mountain Goats fandom wrapped up in your explanation of that line.

457. Cry for Judas

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , , ,

“Cry for Judas” spends a little time wondering if just rewards are coming or not.

Track: “Cry for Judas”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

“Cry for Judas” is one of those songs you can absolutely enjoy without really considering too deeply. The Mountain Goats don’t have “singles” the way you’d normally think of the term, but this is a single as sure as anything the band has ever written is. It’s got to be the catchiest song with the word “baphomet” in it, at least. It’s got a music video, too, which is rare. The video is outside the scope of what we’ll talk about, but it’s one of my favorites.

You’re statistically very likely to hear this at a live show because it’s so damn catchy, but you may need to stop for a second to think about what the “this is what you get” line means, or, indeed, who it is even directed to in that moment. John Darnielle once called the messaging of “Cry for Judas” “naively hopeful.” We want people to feel bad when they make us feel bad, but that’s not something you can bank on.

The question of the narrator is an interesting one here. It’s not unique to “Cry for Judas,” but the best Mountain Goats songs have a narrator that seems to insist on one thing but obscures what they themselves have done. Here we go even deeper into the messenger and the recipient. Who is going to come out ahead, in the end? Who is going to get what they deserve, but also, who gets to make that call?

456. Lakeside View Apartments Suite

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , , ,

“Lakeside View Apartments Suite” holds the camera on some characters in Portland but doesn’t tell us what happens next.

Track: “Lakeside View Apartments Suite”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

The Mountain Goats have played “Lakeside View Apartments Suite” in Chicago, where I live, at least eight times. I’ve seen all eight of them. I’m sure there are songs like “No Children” or “This Year” that I’ve seen more often, but it was only when I looked this one up on the wiki that I realized how ubiquitous this has been over the years. There are at least three periods where the band played it four nights in a row.

It’s really an incredible song, but it feels so self-contained. I just listened to it again and it hit me the same way it did the very first time I heard it. Some songs evolve in your mind or hit you differently at different points, but “Lakeside View Apartments Suite” isn’t one of them. Live versions carry weight differently, especially during the line about throwing up in the sink. The falsetto John Darnielle rises into when delivering that line never fails to make me take specific notice.

Transcendental Youth in general feels like it has more polish than a lot of the other albums from this era of the Mountain Goats, but that may be just my take on it. It’s not better or worse as a result, but I feel similarly about “Lakeside View Apartments Suite.” When you first hear it you will picture this cast out there in Portland and you will feel, maybe, for people in your life who are similar. It’s perfectly constructed as a story right from the jump.

302. Spent Gladiator 2

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , , ,

“Spent Gladiator 2” is John Darnielle’s insistent reminder that you have to hold out when it gets dark, even though that’s hard to do.

Track: “Spent Gladiator 2”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

The Mountain Goats Wiki includes more than 150 live performances of “Spent Gladiator 2.” You could spend an entire day listening to all of them. I can’t recommend that, but you could. For several years in a row, “Spent Gladiator 2” was likely to be the last song the band played. It was often the conclusion of a second encore, sometimes with just Peter Hughes on bass and John Darnielle doing a slowed-down version with no mic. I once saw him wander through the crowd and sing it more or less at people, which was a truly special experience.

It’s the companion song to “Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1,” which is much more triumphant and furious. The second one shows us a different type of resistance, with clenched teeth and final straws rather than burning bright. “Stay alive,” John Darnielle still says, but “maybe spit some blood at the camera.”

The message of Transcendental Youth is a consistent one. There is power in hope, even when it seems like there isn’t. The imagery in “Spent Gladiator 2” is grim, but it’s still worth standing up again. It’s always worth doing that, John Darnielle wants you to know. You’d pick up the same command from angry songs like “Up the Wolves” or frantic ones like “Dance Music” or a hundred other songs, but John Darnielle closes the show with “Spent Gladiator 2” because it’s the hardest lesson to learn. When you’re good and mad you’re likely to get back up, but you need to do it when it’s way harder than that, too.

289. White Cedar

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , , ,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQGg58ixXjE

“White Cedar” finds a narrator in a painful loop they hope to break.

Track: “White Cedar”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

In 2012, Pitchfork interviewed John Darnielle about the release of Transcendental Youth. I love that they just said essentially “White Cedar is sad, what’s up with that?” He said that it’s about a narrator accepting that they are going to be in the hospital a lot and that they have to come to terms with that reality. This person probably isn’t going to be okay and they probably aren’t going to get to the day they describe in the song. His answer is really worth reading in full, but “White Cedar” goes off in a different direction.

The narrator in this song hopes for a future they likely won’t see. “My spirit sings loud and clear // even in here,” is powerful, when one considers the reality of “here.” The comment sections of Mountain Goats blogs and videos are filled with people who say they just got out of facilities that were supposed to reform or fix them and how they didn’t always work. John Darnielle asks us to ignore that part and to think about what you do when you wake up handcuffed to the bed.

“Mole” is the obvious sister song, with the same setting and a similar idea. The difference is that “White Cedar” finds a narrator really hoping this isn’t how it’s going to go. “You can’t tell me what my spirit tells me isn’t true” is a willful statement, undercut deliberately by the questioning “can you?” They don’t know, because they can’t know. There’s hope in all cases, but the gaps we fill in through the story untold in “White Cedar” makes it hard to find that hope. This is a song for when you have to look extra hard.

262. Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1

Alex Russell Transcendental Youth , , , , , , ,

The message of the Mountain Goats couldn’t be more clear than it is in “Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1.”

Track: “Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

John Darnielle has written a lot of songs about what happens to people who can’t escape addiction. “All Along the Seething Coast” and “Steal Smoked Fish” come to mind, both of them feature characters who are addicts and who probably aren’t going to make it through things to see the other side. The message is never hopeless, but it’s sometimes realistic about the odds and the feelings that come from being in those situations.

“Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1” starts off Transcendental Youth with an aggressively hopeful counter message. It’s about Amy Winehouse, who didn’t make it, but no one really makes it. It’s reductive to think about someone’s life in those terms, but John Darnielle wants us to consider the challenge rather than to pity people. There are so many songs that approach life through this lens, often ones that people hold up as anthems. Go to a live show and listen to how people sing along with songs like “Broom People” and “You Were Cool” and you’ll see what I mean.

John Darnielle once introduced “Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1” by saying it speaks for itself. He’s right, which is why I don’t have much to add beyond marveling at the message. “Just stay alive,” John Darnielle says, over and over, and by the end of the song he’s screaming it. The message to people struggling could not be more clear. It’s impossible to miss the message, but it’s worth commenting briefly on the delivery method. “Spent Gladiator 2” is the sister song and it’s a much quieter one, but the explosion of the first one really forces you to pay attention. If you’re in a position where this song can help you, John Darnielle wants to do all he can to make you listen to it.

190. Steal Smoked Fish

Alex Russell Steal Smoked Fish, Transcendental Youth , , , , , , , ,

John Darnielle offers some advice for his former compatriots in Portland in “Steal Smoked Fish.”

Track: “Steal Smoked Fish”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012) and Steal Smoked Fish (2012)

If you’ve been to Portland, you know the Burnside Bridge. “Steal Smoked Fish” follows some of John Darnielle’s younger accomplices as they cross the bridge, see the iconic “White Stag” sign (before it was bought by the city and rewritten to say “Portland, Oregon”), and raid a convenience store. In another song, “two on point, and two on sentry” at the Plaid Pantry might be a metaphor, but here it’s more likely a literal plan of attack.

There are dozens of songs and multiple albums about John Darnielle’s time in Portland. He’s on the record over and over again about the mistakes of his youth, but “Steal Smoked Fish” allows him to return to those days as an omniscient narrator. In this bonus track from Transcendental Youth, the drug addicts and thieves of Portland “feast when you can // and dream when there’s nothing to feast on.” With perspective, we know this is a way to make it through tough times, but it’s tough to sustain that way in the moment.

Even with a reference to “the joys that the lesser days bring,” this still isn’t a song about good times. The days are lesser not just because you’re older now, but because the points of importance were so petty. You can feel Darnielle’s narrator whispering advice to these characters that they won’t take, but there’s still hope. It’s an interesting duality between memories of those times and hope that characters won’t stay in them in places like “disappear in a cloud of dust // but spare a thought for what it covers up.”

Ultimately, these characters are too far gone. John Darnielle introduces the song live as being about ghosts, but it’s still a story of who they were and both what they did and might have done.