Get Famous - Mountain Goats

Get Famous - Mountain Goats

3:19

Getting Into Knives, 2020

Written by John Darnielle

This song is a satirical jab at someone who puts ego and ambition above all else.  "Light up the sky like a comet / Make yourself want to vomit / Shine like a cursed star . Show everybody exactly who you are."   Darnielle delivers the words this one with more emotion than typical, and the song is punched up with sharp, bluesy brass lines, giving it a full sound.  The song references Wesley Willis, whom Darnielle explained he uses as inspiration to write second-person, accusatory songs.

No Children - The Mountain Goats

No Children - The Mountain Goats

2:48

Tallahassee, 2002

Written by John Darnielle

One of the most blackly funny breakup songs ever recorded ("I hope that our few remaining friends / Give up on trying to save us / I hope we come up with a failsafe plot / To piss off the dumb few that forgave us.")  This song feels like it was written by someone drowning in poison and laughing about it. Over a bright, perky piano and upbeat strumming, Darnielle spits apocalyptic nihilism with a grin: "I hope you die / I hope we both die." It's a song about mutual destruction, sung as if it's a jaunty campfire tune. That contrast — the bouncy melody versus the scorched-earth lyrics — is exactly the Mountain Goats' magic trick.  The narrator and his partner are long past reconciliation, reveling in their shared misery like doomed lovers in a cheap motel. "I am drowning / There is no sign of land," he declares, sounding more defiant than defeated. Darnielle's voice strains and cracks, but the delivery is gleeful, an exorcism by singalong.  It's a portrait of broken love at its ugliest and most honest.

Pigs That Ran Straightaway Into the Water, Triumph Of - The Mountain Goats

Pigs That Ran Straightaway Into the Water, Triumph Of - The Mountain Goats

2:52

We Shall All Be Healed, 2004

Written by John Darnielle

I think the Goats are the first artist to appear four times on this blog.  I must be a superfan!  The song title, of course, references Mark 5:13.  "Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.  And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.  And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea."  It's a metaphor for the narrator and his meth addict "evil spirits."  Will he be sent back to the correctional facility where he came from, fitted for an orange jumpsuit?  "I come from Chino where the asphalt sprouts."  But his better angels want to go where dragonflies glide and magnolias bloom.

You Or Your Memory - The Mountain Goats

You Or Your Memory - The Mountain Goats

2:15

The Sunset Tree, 2005

Written by John Darnielle

Tha narrator is in a hotel room, seemingly afraid.  Nervously peering out the curtains.  Preparing for somehing, but what?  "Lord if I make it through tonight / Then I will mend my ways and walk the straight path to the end of my days." He's got some aspirin and some liquor.  Is he trying to come off the meth and up for a hard night of DTs?  Or just a long dark introspection of the soul?  The song is sorrowful, but calm, somehow optimistic despite it all.

Palmcorder Yajna - The Mountain Goats

Palmcorder Yajna - The Mountain Goats

4:08

We Shall All be Healed, 2004

Written by John Darnielle

The Mountain Goats aren't the first artist to reappear here, but this song marks the first reoccurrence of an album on this blog.  Continuing the tweaker theme of the album, this song finds a group of meth heads gathering at a decrepit hotel to get high.  What's that title all about?  A palmcorder is a brand of Panasonic camcorder ('And I dreamt of a camera / Pointing out from inside the television").  A Yajna or Yagna is a Hindu ritual done in front of a sacred fire ("If anybody comes into our room while we're asleep / I hope they incinerate everybody in it").  Grim, foreboding, strident.

Letter From Belgium - The Mountain Goats

Letter From Belgium - The Mountain Goats

3:11

We Shall All Be Healed, 2004

Written by John Darnielle

I only recently got into the Mountain Goats, though several of the artists I admire have extolled their praises in print.  It is told from the point of view of a tweaker, sweating out a meth addiction, afraid to go outside, "Chewing our tongues off / Waiting for the fever to break."  Darnielle's impassioned, urgent voice and the stark, driving chords really sell this song.  Despite its rather narrow reach, lyrically, it's one of my favorites by this band.