The Mountain Goats – John Darnielle, Peter Hughes, Jon Wurster, December 2010.
“I Love You. Let’s Stay Away From Fire Accelerants”
“This Motel Isn’t A Symbol Of Anything”
“Going To Georgia (To Protest Its Permissive Gun Laws)”
“Neither Of Us Shoplifts And We Only Took Vicodin That Once”
“It’s Hot Here But I’m Able To Separate That From My Feelings About Our Marriage”
“A Song In Which Travel Successfully Reignites The Flame”
“The House That Didn’t Drip Any Bodily Fluids”
“Yes, I Can”
“We Both Have Steady Paychecks And Put 15% Into Savings”
“I Love It When You Sing To Our Child And I Think We Can All Agree It Would Be Weird If I Didn’t”
“Nothing Going On Here Resembles A Trashcan Fire”
“I Thought About Titling This Song In Latin But Decided Against It”
“You’re Back In Town? That’s Cool, Let Me Know If You Want To Grab Coffee Sometime”
“No Train Noises In The Background Of This One, No Sir”
“I Keep My Bathroom Pretty Clean, But I Never Feel Tempted To Lie Down In There”
“A Package Came For You Today–Is It For My Birthday? 😀 😀 :D”
“Communicate, Compromise, And Never Go To Bed Angry”
“The Guy At The Liquor Store Probably Doesn’t Know Our Names”
“Importing Strawberries From England Would Be Madness When They Have Perfectly Good Ones Right Here At The Ralph’s”
“Greyhounds Really Are A Fantastic Way To See America”
“I’m Upset But I’m Still Going To Take My Clothes Off Before I Get In The Shower”
“This Relationship Is Not A Grift”
“Just A Song About Cheerfully Making Soup”
“I Guess I Can See How Someone Might Mistake Lust And Shared Dependencies For Love, But It’s Not A Problem I’ve Ever Had”
“I Hear You Out In The Garage–See If You Can Find That Jigsaw Puzzle We Wanted To Do”
“Waving At You (Every Morning As You Leave For Work)”
“People Say Friends Don’t Destroy One Another, So I’m Going To Reevaluate Some Of My Toxic Relationships”
“Our House Has No Structural Flaws”
“Alpha Happy Anniversary Sweetheart”
“The Chord Structure For This One Sounded A Lot Like Another Song Of Mine, So I Went Ahead And Rewrote It”
“Twin Human Highway Flares”
“There Will Be No Divorce”
Laughing so hard there are literally tears streaming down my face.
I am going to make it through this list if it kills me.
that can be arranged.
*weeps with joy*
That Thing Where You Laugh So Hard Someone Comes To Check On You: The Toast Experience
I love The Mountain Goats so so SO much and wish I’d discovered them when I was still in high school. This is A+++++++ great.
“I’m Upset But I’m Still Going To Take My Clothes Off Before I Get In The Shower” lost it right there
SAAAAME
I met my husband at a mountain goat show and let me tell you it is damn hard to find a wedding appropriate song by them (we went with 02-75 and Bride). These would have totally worked though!
that’s AMAZING. Bride is one of my personal favorites.
it was SO awesome to see people slow dance to it and the uninitiated were totally caught off guard by the whole ‘we belong dead thing’
Hah! My husband and I regularly play and dedicate to each other “No Children”.
At least you weren’t this person who played “No Children”: http://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2014/05/09/3…
adding to my wedding pinterest
Yeah, when i told John Darnielle I met my fiance at one of his show he explictily said “I hope you’re not playing’ No Children’. We kept our word.
There were multiple comment threads on Offbeat Bride long ago about how the commenters shouldn’t diss No Children as a wedding reception song because members of the community there had used it as their first dance. Someone came around arguing that it is actually a song about abiding and committed love. I have never, ever been able to understand the argument they were making, and it has become a little like a Zen koan, which I think about every once in a while less to figure it out than to experience complete puzzlement.
I could see how you could argue that it’s so vitriolic that it must indicate passion, and therefore maybe an undercurrent of deep love? Or if not love, something more like intense, toxic, abiding codependence? But just saying “it’s really about love” seems like an oversimplification!!
But it’s also a great example of the way that Mountain Goats songs can feel so *joyful* when the subject matter is completely bleak. Just like…the explosiveness of it, the cathartic blast of SHOUTING FEELINGS. It just feels GOOD. HEY WORLD, HERE IS THE TERRIBLENESS IN ME AND IN US ALL, LET’S SCREAM ABOUT IT, TOGETHER.
“intense, toxic, abiding codependence” seems 100% right. Like, you just know the couple in the song is NEVER breaking up. That doesn’t mean they should be together!
And yes, this is definitely the best song to see live and shout along to with a couple hundred strangers/close friends.
JENNY! Jenny is the PERFECT wedding song! “Our house faced west / So the big orange sun
Positioned at your back /Lit up your magnificent silhouette / How much better, how much better can my life get? / 900 cubic centimeters of raw, whining power, no outstanding warrants for my arrest / Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, the pirate’s life for me”
I met my husband at a Mountain Goat show and let me tell you it is damn hard to find a wedding appropriate song by them (We settled on 02-75 and Bride). But these totally would have worked!
oops this posted twice!
THIS IS GREAT/HILARIOUS BUT …. i actually find “Twin Human Highway Flares” extremely depressing?
like the song is about being super in love but also having a nagging panic that someday you won’t be anymore
It does have the nagging panic dimension, I agree, but I think it’s more hopeful than anything. Plus, he wrote that one for his wife while they were dating so it’s much less doom-portending than any of the Alpha cycle.
Wonderful. My husband and his ex-wife thought about having John Darnielle sing at their ceremony… they divorced fairly soon after their marriage.
omg that’s like inviting an evil fairy to the christening! Like, definitely the coolest party guest and an unforgettable ceremony, but there’s gonna be a curse.
Nooo, you definitely WANT to invite the evil fairy so she’ll give you a good gift. If you snub her you’re totally getting a curse.
d’oh! [adds “gets fairy etiquette mixed up” to list of reasons parenthood is not for me]
This is an amazing one-sentence story, though.
There was literally a moment early in our wedding planning when she said “What if we have a Mountain Goats themed wedding” and I said “I think that’s called a divorce”
It never occurred to me how perfect a match The Toast and John Darnielle are.
To the archives! Emma Stanford is the Best
Emma Tells Us Which Song to Listen To
Nicole Yells About Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for this.
…does anyone else really want to lie on their bathroom floor now? just wondering…
I’ve done that more than a few times, it’s weirdly comfortable (though in a Mountain Goats context, I’m now concerned about myself).
Only when I’m real drunk. Then I want to live there.
“It’s Hot Here But I’m Able To Separate That From My Feelings About Our Marriage”
This is my favourite of these so far. I am going to bookmark it to read every time I feel even a little bit sad.
“Color In Your Cheeks (From Vigorous Exercise 3-4 Times A Week)”
I saw the Mountain Goats a couple years ago and in the middle of the show some jackoff yelled “FREE BIRD!” and John Darnielle brought everything to a grinding halt to yell at him about how you should never ever do that at a concert. A+
I have a theory that this phenomenon could be halted by every band writing a new song of their own and calling it Free Bird.
That makes me think of this song by the Doubleclicks.
Guy at 1:19 is trying to get the rest of the withering-scorn song dedicated to him.
… Really? I seem to recall this. It wasn’t Minneapolis, was it?
It was not! It was in Burlington, Vermont. But I kind of love the idea of this happening more than once.
I would not doubt that, you must be firm and consistent with this sort of idiot.
Truth! I will never understand why people think stuff like that is funny or clever, as if every musician on the planet hasn’t heard it at least a billion times.
It totally has! I like it too. Oh gosh I just adore him.
Pretty sure this happened in Boston as well (or maybe San Francisco, I cannot quite recall what show it was). Definitely not Burlington or Minneapolis, so this seems to be a growing trend.
The lovely SJ Tucker, songstress, used to have on her LJ the tag “yell freebird and die” as it’s her stated policy.
“Quetzalcoatl Is An Indigenous South American Deity”
This is the best. There’s no way it can possibly be improved.
Awesome list! Did it originate from the Mountain Goats-themed comment thread here: http://the-toast.net/2014/10/22/songs-neutral-mil… ?
Oh wow! I missed that, but those are incredible.
“Just A Song About Cheerfully Making Soup”
this would be my jam.
I assume that John Darnielle has actually written a song like that, probably while hanging out with his kids.
But what about the Mountain Goats song actually about jam?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvDbzb_gItI
That, of course, is my soup.
Jam? Ah yes, I love eating that on toast, rather than directly from the jar.
Dennis Brown Is Fine, But Thanks For Checking In
(I get so excited every time The Toast publishes a new MG-related item!!!!!)
It is possible that this is the post that will finally get me to stop listening to Hamilton on repeat and branch out to other music again. Because apparently The Toast is now in complete control of my music choices. Hmm.
Actually according to this thread, the Mountain Goats and Lin-Manuel Miranda worked on some possible upcoming collaborations?!?! https://twitter.com/mountain_goats/status/5642122…
Yep, I spent all day at work today listening to the Mountain Goats and staring out the window at the rain. Highly recommend.
A bit sad that there aren’t many recent references here, but still cracked up
“It Sure Was Fun to Watch Pro-Wrestling As a Family, When I Was A Kid”
“Not-having-been-burned-alive-and-living-a-pleasant-life Pride”
“Let Me Tell You About A Musician From the Past Who Lived a Long, Happy Life”
“We Stayed In a Motel and Didn’t Do Any Drugs”
“A Pleasant Short Story About My Favorite Minor Character In A Film Who Does Not Meet An Unfortunate End”
“I Am Not Emotionally Attached To Any Older Celebrity Entertainers.”
Damn These (Sparkly Twilight) Vampires, I Prefer Old School Dracula
“One of the Many Positive, Upbeat Stories in the Bible”
“Entirely Unmonstrous Narrator”
“I’ve Thoughtfully Reevaluated My Life Choices And Decided They Were Largely Wise, Perhaps Not All Of Them, But The Ones That Counted”
“Half-Eaten Gallons of Ice Cream (Left Over From A Really Nice Birthday Party)”
Those first two are so wonderfully perfect that I am not sure I need any others (jk there can never be enough)
“I Made it Through the Year without Any Thoughts of Death or Other Existential Crises”
“Game Shows Can Be a Pleasant Diversion”
“Insurance Fraud Isn’t Something I’ve Considered”
“Your Belgian Things (Make a Charming Tableau on the Mantle)”
“Orange Ball Of Healthy Emotions”
“Looking Back, I’m Grateful I Ended That Relationship Before It Got Really Toxic”
“Hast Thou Considered Pleasant Childhood Memories Of Your Stepfather?”
“Hello, it’s the Mountain Goats, at 10:24 on Sunday the 20th of December, and this is a funny story where everyone’s throats make normal sounds”
“The Chord Structure For This One Sounded A Lot Like Another Song Of Mine, So I Went Ahead And Rewrote It”
One of the things I love so much is how the first stanza of “You Were Cool” are a fourth wall breaking “yes, I use these chords in a lot of my songs and the reason why is sincere and sad.” So meta.
Go To Whole Foods For Smoked Fish If You Want Some
“Nothing Going On Here Resembles A Trashcan Fire”
for some reason has me crying with laughter oh my god
“Fluffy Object”
“Going to Twinsburg, a largely white, middle-class exurb of Cleveland”
“Yanks in Five”
Bam! Love it. Well done.
Nobody Is Stabbing Anyone With Anything, Thank You Very Much
People Can Feel Exhilarated Even When They’re Not About To Die Or Go To Prison
Teens Whose Families Love And Understand Them
I Am At The Beginning Of My Rope (Early Middle At The Latest)
None Of The Lyrics To This Song Are In The Imperative
“Yes, I Can”
Low-hanging fruit, but it got a laugh outta me
“I Can’t Think Of Any Good Reasons To Freeze To Death”
“When We Have Sex It Is Because We Like Each Other”
“If I See Sunlight Hit You I Am Sure That It’ll Be Really Flattering”
“The Sight of Sunsets, Daisies On Hillsides, Etc Fills Me With Appreciation For Nature And Not Palpable Venomous Hatred, Haha That Would Be Pretty Concerning Huh”
“Selling Acid Was A Bad Idea So You Didn’t Do It And Eventually Found A New Direction In Life To Replace Sports”
“I Have Exactly The Regular And Healthy Amount Of Investment In My Werewolf Wrestling Persona”
“I Took A Job In Puerto Rico And Had a Lovely Time Wherein Nobody Murdered Me”
“The Magpie Is An Interesting Bird And Not A Menacing, Fairytale-Like Metaphor For Any Terrible People In My Life”
I am going to make through this year, with the support of my friends and family!
Haha!! I was either at that show or the EXACT same thing happened at another show and John has a stock monologue (this would not surprise me in the least).
A memory from my childhood which did not at all involve violence or drug and alcohol abuse
Song about some friends who are alive and not using heroin
But what about the Mountain Goats song actually about jam?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvDbzb_gItI
Exactly The Amount Of Children We Wanted
No Angry Mobs Are Coming To Kill Me
Tourist In Brooklyn
This Song Does Not Involve Satanism In Any Way
Cheer For Judas, It’s His Birthday And We All Love Him
Prance Great Cain
(this is article is my second favorite thing ever; my favorite thing ever is The Mountain Goats)