The internet makes certain things easier – I was going to have a stab at 2003 – but Google told me that it was actually 20th January 2004. I’d not been having the best of times. The September previous I’d been kicked out of university. I’d made arrangements to start at a new Uni, but I had to wait a semester before I could start on my new course – an informal “cooling off period” apparently. I’d spent that time drinking everyday and getting myself in dumb, confusing situations. I couldn’t write. I felt lonely.
I’d never imagined John Peel not being there. I didn’t listen to every single one of his shows, but I’d check in fairly regularly. Quite often I’d scramble round in a tatty cardboard box filled with worn out cassettes that I kept under my bed and try to find one that I didn’t mind taping over. I’d pop it in my stereo and try to record anything interesting that I hadn’t heard before. I’d keep the cassette cued up and just as the song would start I’d start recording. If the song didn’t grab my attention I’d press stop and get the cassette back in place, ready for the next song – in case that would be the one. It was a strange way of doing it – it would have been easier to have just left the tape running for the whole show. I didn’t mind though – because I trusted John Peel – he’d been responsible for me finding out about a ton of amazing bands during my teenage years already.
I heard a few things that caught my ear. But nothing completely amazing. Then a new song started. Some clangy, lofi, country-esque guitars being strummed along to a big steady beat. It sounded ok. But it didn’t feel like it was going to save my soul from oblivion, so my finger hovered over the stop button. Then I heard the voice.
It sounded like a million things at once – manic, shaking, sad, urgent, untrained, perfect, desperate, triumphant – those are just eight – but yeah – there were so many more.
The song seemed to be about a group of wasters stuck in a house that they were all afraid to get out of. It sounded like the characters were all really close, but stuck together, rather than hanging out by choice – they sounded trapped, they sounded paranoid, they sounded like they were out of options. Then a really simple piano part entered the song (at 2:26 if anyone reading this wants to hear the exact moment that my heart fell to pieces) – it was just one note played over and over again in the background. And the singer – the guy with the voice – sang a line that sounded like it came from one of the greatest novels or poems that I’d never read:
“If anybody comes to see me – tell them they just missed me by a minute. If anybody comes into our room while we’re asleep – I hope they incinerate everybody in it.”
I sat on the floor of my bedroom, slumped back against the bed and cried.
I got the feeling that the people in the song – the tweakers – were doomed, but in a way I think I’d just been saved.
Just for the record, these are the complete lyrics to that song – the very first Mountain Goats song that I heard:
Palmcorder Yajna
Holt Boulevard
Between Gary and White
Hooked up with some friends at the Travelodge
Set ourselves up for the night
Carpenter ants in the dresser
Flies in the screen
It will be too late by the time we learn
What these cryptic symbols mean
And I dreamt of a house
Haunted by all you tweakers with your hands out
And the headstones climbed up the hills
And the headstones climbed up the hills
Send somebody out for soda
Comb through the carpet for clues
Reflective tape on our sweatpants
Big holes in our shoes
Every couple minutes someone says he can't stand it anymore
Laugh lines on our faces
Scale maps of the ocean floor
And I dreamt of a camera
Pointing out from inside the television
And the aperture yawning and blinking
And the headstones climbed up the hills
If anybody comes to see me
Tell 'em they just missed me by a minute
If anybody comes in to our room while we're asleep
I hope they incinerate everybody in it
And I dreamt of a factory
Where they manufactured what I needed
Using shiny new machines
And the headstones climbed up the hills
You can listen to the song here.
About a week later a friend gave me a handful of CDs to review for him music website. One of them was We Shall All Be Healed, and that song – the one with the lyrics that had blown the back of my skull off a few days before, was on there. It was fate.
I remember listening to the album all the way through and thinking “This is special”. I knew that I’d discovered a band that was going to be with me for the long haul. I started scurrying through their history – I discovered that John had already put out a ton of albums, that The Mountain Goats had been around for a while – from boombox recorded self released cassettes to the more recent stuff that had found them signed to 4AD Records. I realised that John Darnielle was one of the greatest lyricists that I had ever heard. In the short space that the average song provides, he was able to create characters and situations that felt so real that they pain and their confusion was so palpable that at times it was just too much. He would write albums about dead friends, couples who were heading for divorce, abusive stepfathers, people looking to be saved.
When it comes to music, or any art for that matter – you know – the good stuff – it’s hard to articulate just why something is so important to you. I guess that’s why it’s art, because it goes above and beyond what normal ideas or rational thought processes can explain. Something either gets you or it doesn’t. The Mountain Goats get me. They get me every single time.
Thomas
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A short introduction/biography
In their own words: “Most bios attempt to describe the music made by the band they're profiling, and to compare it favorably to the work of giants in the field. This isn't that kind of bio. The general musical framework within which the Mountain Goats have worked for ten-plus years has been acoustic guitar, bass, and voice. The lyrics are central to the whole enterprise. Many of the songs involve desperate characters who've found themselves in some trouble and want to moan about it a little before taking their lumps. The sexual tension between characters in your average Mountain Goats song could split the atom if the power could be harnessed, but it can't, so forget it. Now you know what we know. Go forth and sin no more.” Read more here.
In Wikipedia’s words: The Mountain Goats is a Durham, North Carolina-based band led by American singer-songwriter John Darnielle. Darnielle began recording in 1991, and is known for his highly literate lyrics and (until 2002) his lo-fi recording style. The Mountain Goats' recent albums have comprised the core trio of Darnielle, Peter Hughes on bass guitar, and Jon Wurster on drums. In 1991, Darnielle began performing under the name The Mountain Goats in Claremont, California, where he attended Pitzer College and worked as a psychiatric nurse. The band's name is a reference to the Screamin' Jay Hawkins song "Yellow Coat". Darnielle released his first album, Taboo VI: The Homecoming, on Shrimper Records. Many of his first recordings and performances featured Darnielle accompanied by members of the all-girl reggae band The Casual Girls, who became known as The Bright Mountain Choir. One of this group's members, Rachel Ware, continued to accompany Darnielle on bass, both live and in studio, until 1995. The first five years of the Mountain Goats' career saw a prolific output of songs on cassette, vinyl and CD. These releases spanned multiple labels and countries of origin; many were unavailable to the majority of fans until recent reissues. The focus of the Mountain Goats project was the urgency of writing. Songs not recorded adequately to tape within days of being written were often forgotten. Read more here.
Songs
LINKS
Official website.
John Darnielle’s always brilliant blog.
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