He says he was working through something personal about the song and that the song is about distance (perhaps more temporally and emotionally than physically).
12.03.2026 03:19
👍 0
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 0
He says he was working through something personal about the song and that the song is about distance (perhaps more temporally and emotionally than physically).
"I went down Yale today, just in the old way
and a black dog hobbled past me
its tags jangled on its collar
it made me wish I was dead"
That sure is a Mountain Goats lyric
John Darnielle says this song is why Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg exists, which is funny given that it is unreleased.
(This Year #41) March 11 - Ghosts from the unreleased Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg. You can listen to it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OEh...
John Darnielle does note the enjambment in the last verse
saying he was "forcing the narrator too far around the bend", which is a pretty good pun.
and 2) for the fourth tree
"sends its tendrils through the water mains and tries to poison me
its leaves are thick, and always falling, and pure"
the 'pure' obviously sticks out and I don't know what to make of it.
only questions are 1) for the first tree,
"when winter comes it stands right outside
with its blossom-laden arms spread wide"
why is it blossoming in the winter?
Maybe the most prose-y (but not prosaic) lyrics I've seen, and maybe the first time I've read some lyrics and really enjoyed them by themselves.
John Darnielle says this song is supposed to suggest the narrator is unreliable, but thinking a tree is your enemy is pretty tame compared to a lot of Mountain Goats narrators
(This Year #40) March 10 - Four New Trees from the unreleased Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg. You can listen to it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkOD...
guy who says lynyrd skynyd as lie nerd sky nerd (me)
anyway, the song seems good, I need to listen to it again later. I like this bit:
"I ask you how you're doing, you swear up and down you're ok
but I can see what's gotten into your eyes
and it's written all over your face tonight
we will never see Ireland again"
Of course I have my own hang-ups about content creators letting their content vanish into the aether, and John Darnielle has talked about how he's okay writing a song and tossing it because the act of writing the song still has value in honing his craft, and that's probably all there is to it.
I think all we are going to get from the book is that looking back (circa 2025, when the album was written around 1995 and leaked around 2006) is that the leak ultimately made it easier for him to get the lyrics for the song and so "on balance, victory". I wish he explained more.
I wonder why the album was unreleased (since it seems pretty finished and seems to have some good songs on it) and why he was "very mad" when it was leaked 11 years later (was he planning on releasing it someday? did he not want people to hear it ever?).
(This Year #39) March 9 - Red Choral Diamon Spray from the unreleased but leaked album Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg. You can listen to it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_YZ...
eugene onegin when george thorogood walks in D:
literate russian peasant:
i tazan,
eugene onegin
semi-literate medieval peasant at the public humiliation:
i tars an'
you feather
In the Mountain Goat's:
"And the stars fell on Alabama
and your eyes filled up with light
...
and your pistol glistened
...
and the stars fell on Alabama
but if you think I'll take a bullet for you, you're dreaming"
JD's also starts with kisses:
"there were lazy kisses
and hands brushing, and small talk"
and also has
"And the stars fell on Alabama"
but of course the "little drama" that made their "heart beat like a hammer" is a little more dramatic
John Darnielle says it shares the title but "otherwise bears no resemblance" but I am not sure I agree. The original has lines:
"We lived our little drama
We kissed in a field of white
...My heart beat like a hammer
My arms wound around you tight
And stars fell on Alabama last night"
This is the fourth and final song in the book's Firearms Suite. If you are wondering "hey isn't that song by someone else " it is a title of an old jazz standard (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_F...) recorded by people like Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Buffet (www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKwG...)
(This Year #38) March 8 - Stars Fell on Alabama from Nine Black Poppies. You can listen to it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XLf...
John Darnielle writes again about the recurring theme of repetition at the end of the song
"Disappear
disappear
disappear
disappear."
There is a Cheshire county in New Hampshire (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshir...) and a Cheshire county in England (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire) I wonder which he means, but it may be neither.
Both songs have some off putting parts, Cow Song has "See how the cows start to shine like lightbulbs" which makes me wonder if they will start being lifted slowly up in beams of lights towards UFOs, and Cheshire County has "You were saying my name backwards in your sleep again"
I wish I was capable of the the unaffected joy he has when singing about cows and other animals (like "Possum by Night" on In League with Dragons)
I missed a song in early January called "The Cow Song" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPNI...), this one is also shows a fondness for cows:
"Her udder was far with fresh milk
and her black-and-white coat was as smooth as silk"
This is a break from the book's Firearms Suite which will conclude tomorrow. Given how often John Danielle talked about track order on albums on the I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats podcast I assume the order of the songs in the book has a lot of thought put into it