[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
“Game Shows Touch Our Lives” by The Mountain Goats
Dug up a fifth of Hood River gin
That stuff tastes like medicine
But I’ll take it
It’ll do
On the couch in the living room all day long
Music on the television playing our song
And I’m in the mood
The mood for you
Turn the volume up real high
All of that money look at it fly
And you smoking like a chimney
Shadows crawled across the living room’s length
I held onto you with a desperate strength
With everything with everything in me
And I handed you a drink of the lovely little thing
On which our survival depends
People say friends don’t destroy one another
What do they know about friends?
Thunderclouds forming cream white moon
Everything’s going to be okay soon
Maybe tomorrow
Maybe the next day
Carried you up the stairs that night
All of this could be yours if the price is right
I heard cars headed down to oblivion
Up on the expressway
Your drunken kisses as light as the air
Maybe everything that falls down eventually rises
Our house sinking into disrepair
Ah but look at this showroom filled with fabulous prizes
13 notes / 80 plays
“Old College Try” by The Mountain Goats
During my break, a co-worker asked if they could listen to what I was listening to. I paused and restarted the song, handed her an earphone and hit play so “Old College Try” by The Mountain Goats could play. After the song was done she said, “That’s a really sweet song”. I asked her if that’s what she really thought about it and she asked why. I told her, “To be honest I find the song rather sad. Kind of tragic.” She asked why and I told her, “It’s two people who are in love but can’t really stand to be with each other. Still, they feel they can’t be without each other and that ‘love’ becomes their prison with them being cellmates.” She didn’t say anything for a bit and then asked, “You don’t think that loving someone so much that you feel you have to be with them is nice?” I shook my head and said, “I think it’s a terrible thing to fall into.”
I have thought, for a while now, that it’s better to want someone than to need them. It might be, with my oh-so-long 24 years of wisdom, that I am wrong; as young folk tend to be. My thoughts are that it’s sad to need someone. If you need something, that means your survival depends on it. You need to breathe. You need to eat. You need to sleep. These are things that, we as people, need to not die. Some people don’t like to eat, others don’t like to sleep. I myself think it would be great if I could live my life without needing to breathe. Note that I said “needing”, making it optional. How does this relate to what I was talking about? Needing to be with someone takes the romanticism of the relationship away. How? Because it’s no longer my choice. I might not want to be with that person but I might feel like I have to be with them because I see no other way.
Notice how in the song, when complimenting his partner, he also throws in a few things that take the romance out of the comment:
In the way those eyes I’ve always loved illuminate this place
Like a trashcan fire in a prison cell
Like the searchlights in the parking lots of hell
If I want to be with someone, it’s my choice. It is because I want to be with them. I might not need them in my life, but I really want them to be a part of it. I want to share things with them. I want to make memories with that person. It is a much more beautiful thing, I think. Of course, I might be horribly wrong.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
“Alpha Rats Nest” by The Mountain Goats
Ah the lengthening hours in the refinery
Belching fire into the sky
We do our best vampire routines
As we suck the dying hours dry
The night is lovely as a rose
If I see sunlight hit you
I am sure that we’ll both decompose
Ah the fitful sleep and the fire engines
That I dream of when I dream
Some day we’ll both wake up for good
I will try hard not to scream
The evening wind will shake the blinds
You’re stirring from your slumber
We’ve got something hateful on our minds
Oh sing sing sing
For the dying of the day
Sing for the flames that will rip through here
And the smoke that will carry us away
Yeah sing for the damage we’ve done
And the worse things that we’ll do
Open your mouth up and sing for me now
And I will sing for you
Notes / 10 plays
“Alpha Rats Nest” by The Mountain Goats
5 notes / 10 plays
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The Mountain Goats
“Pink And Blue”
“Pink and Blue” by The Mountain Goats
I feel like this is a song I will sing to my kids if they ask me to sing them a song before bed.
3 notes / 11 plays
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“Old College Try” by The Mountain Goats
From the housetops to the gutters
From the ocean to the shore
The warning signs have all been bright and garish
Far too great in number to ignore
From the cities to the swamplands
From the highways to the hills
Our love has never had a leg to stand on
From the aspirins to the cross-tops to the Elevils
But I will walk down to the end with you
If you will come all the way down with me
From the entrance to the exit
Is longer than it looks from where we stand
I want to say I’m sorry for stuff I haven’t done yet
Things will shortly get completely out of hand
I can feel it in the rotten air tonight
In the tips of my fingers
In the skin on my face
In the weak last gasp of the evening’s dying light
In the way those eyes I’ve always loved illuminate this place
Like a trashcan fire in a prison cell
Like the searchlights in the parking lots of hell
I will walk down to the end with you
If you will come all the way down with me
7 notes / 10 plays
The Mountain Goats
“Jeff Davis County Blues”
“Jeff Davis County Blues” by The Mountain Goats
After three nights in jail, I head north from Toyaville.
Switch to 285 in Pecos, head up to Red Bluff.
My walk's real steady and my eyes are real cold
But I feel like I'm all of sixteen years old
Lost in the travel lodge, with the television on with the sound down,
I don't feel so tough.
Old issues of sunset magazine to read,
Sleep for twelve hours, and dream about home.
I have no place to go, so I drive up to New Mexico.
Fix my eyes in the rearview when I cross the state line.
And I panic, I guess and although it's quite late,
I take the first exit to 128.
I am coming back to Midland.
I hope you won't mind.
Polaroids of the two of us scattered on the passenger's seat.
I drive slowly
And evenly
And I dream about home.
Notes / 10 plays
If I see sunlight hit you I am sure that we’ll both decompose
— The Mountain Goats
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I will walk down to the end with you if you will come all the way down with me
— The Mountain Goats
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- The Mountain Goats
