In this Discussion
- tune1shade September 2007
The Mountain Goats
I started listening to the Mountain Goats in the fall, when I first moved up to Montreal. I was a little lonely and feeling a bit out of place, as most everyone does (or at least I told myself to feel better) when they first move from home.
The leaves were on the verge of falling and I clicked through my iPod, walking down Ave. McGill College. I stumbled upon the Mountain Goats, whom I had uploaded after picking up some CDs from the local library. I put them on and John Darnielle's voice fit in the entire scheme of things. His voice was sometimes quiet and cautious, though just as often loud and full of pride or hurt or hope.
The perfect example is "Woke Up New," written presumably about the end of a relationship. It's quiet and it's not until near halfway through the song when Darnielle sings, "and I sang Oh, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do, without you?"
Music Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bSdRizGYb0
The polar opposite is the other video provided on the website, for the song "This Year," written on a concept album about an abusive stepdad. It's hopeful. He will survive this year. He yells it. "I will make it through this year if it kills me."
Though I didn't face an abusive stepdad, the chorus made me hopeful. I will make it through this year. It will not kill me. I will make it through.
Music Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=fYCzDhaRV60
The leaves were on the verge of falling and I clicked through my iPod, walking down Ave. McGill College. I stumbled upon the Mountain Goats, whom I had uploaded after picking up some CDs from the local library. I put them on and John Darnielle's voice fit in the entire scheme of things. His voice was sometimes quiet and cautious, though just as often loud and full of pride or hurt or hope.
The perfect example is "Woke Up New," written presumably about the end of a relationship. It's quiet and it's not until near halfway through the song when Darnielle sings, "and I sang Oh, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do, without you?"
Music Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bSdRizGYb0
The polar opposite is the other video provided on the website, for the song "This Year," written on a concept album about an abusive stepdad. It's hopeful. He will survive this year. He yells it. "I will make it through this year if it kills me."
Though I didn't face an abusive stepdad, the chorus made me hopeful. I will make it through this year. It will not kill me. I will make it through.
Music Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=fYCzDhaRV60
Comments
and this year
how many albums they had?
im now interested!
The albums I have are
Tallahassee (a concept album. Darnielle has a couple of "themes" from his early song, including one set of characters known as the Alpha Couple who are described as "constantly on the brink of divorce." The album is about their move to Tallahassee and the problems and solutions that follow. The songs cycle through saddness to happiness to forgiveness to depression and back again and it's amazing to put on the entire album and just listen to the change of emotion. One of my favorite songs is "International Small Arms Traffic Blues" which compares their love to various things: "Our love is like the border between Greece and Albania. Trucks loaded down with weapons, crossing over every night moon-yellow and bright)
We Shall All be Healed (my favorite of the two. The songs are just overwhelming and beautiful)
Some other albums include The Sunset Year (which includes "This year." It is also a concept album or sorts that's about Darnielle's step father) and Get Lonely.
He's sad, but the music never depresses me. It's kind of the same way I feel about Kimya Dawson; the songs can be incredibly sad, but they always have this tone of hope and beauty. I don't know. I don't know anything about music, I just know what I like.
thank you very much!
Still, it's been a year and the Mountain Goats still remind me of fall, of change, of everything. I'm thinking of writing John Darnielle a note.
"Please Mr. Darnielle, we have poutine here. And we like you, a lot."
"Woke Up New" still brings tears to my eyes. It's lonely and wonderful and about lost love. But it's also about something new, something unknown, and confronting what makes you so scared.
On the morning when I woke up without you for the first time, I felt free and I felt lonely and I felt scared. And I began to talk myself almost immediately, not being used to being the only person there. The first time I made coffee for just myself I made too much of it, but I drank it all because you hate it when I let things go to waste. And I wandered through the house like a little boy lost at the mall and an astronaut could have seen the hunger in my eyes from space. And I sang Oh, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do? What do I do without you?"