Track-by-Track: The Mountain Goats’ Lo-Fi Era

I would divide the Mountain Goats’ hyper-prolific career into 3 periods: the Lo-Fi Era, the Trilogy Era, and the Hi-Fi Era. This division is not exactly neat, but it works because it is (largely) chronological, and it serves to encapsulate how I (and assume many of the band’s fans) first encountered John Darnielle’s music and have come to appreciate it through the years.

The Lo-Fi Era refers to all the boombox recordings—the cassette albums, the EPs, the singles, the joint releases, the assorted live tracks—starting with Taboo VI: The Homecoming in 1991 and ending with 2002’s All Hail West Texas.

The Trilogy refers to the first three studio albums recorded in quick succession after the Lo-Fi Era: Tallahassee, We Shall All Be Healed, The Sunset Tree. These were not only John Darnielle’s/the band’s first releases under a major record label, but also the first to infiltrate the mainstream. Singles were released. Videos were filmed. Songs appeared on popular TV shows (the first time I personally came across the band was hearing the song “Cotton” at the end of an episode of the mid-2000s stoner dramedy Weeds). 

The Modern Era encapsulates everything post The Sunset Tree. It’s as simple as that. 

In creating a set of imagined liner notes as a music writing exercise, it would make sense to focus on The Trilogy. Although not a trilogy in any official or narrative way, The Trilogy is uncontroversially the band’s most popular, lasting and consistent set of records. It also acts as the culmination—lyrically, thematically—of the first era of Darnielle’s career, and hints at what the rest of the band’s output will sound like in the future. It is also the batch of songs I am most familiar with.

But I’m not going to focus on the Trilogy (not now, at least). Instead, I’m going to look at the Lo-Fi era and pick a selection of songs that stood out to me as I listened to the entire early catalogue over the last couple of weeks.

By “entire early catalogue”, I obviously do not literally mean the entire lo-fi catalogue. That would be both exhaustive and exhausting and that’s not my aim here. So I just went with every album available on Apple Music, up till All Hail West Texas, and I picked one track from each record. I’m not saying it is the best song, or the most representative, or even my favourite. It’s just one that piqued my interest for whatever reason.

And by “songs that stood out to me”, I mean in a way that a lot of people wouldn’t normally think about with the Mountain Goats: musically. Analysis of Darnielle’s work naturally tends to focus on his lyrics and the characters that inhabit them. That’s all perfectly fine. But just because there is so much material to mine within his words, doesn’t mean the power of the songs is divorced from their fundamental musical elements—melody, rhythm, arrangement, etc. In fact, I would posit that Darnielle’s lyrical output is so consistently strong that the reason why certain songs resonate with people is largely musical. The words grab you and slap you in the face because the music made you turn around and perk your ears in the first place.

After the notes on each album, I still included one or two lines that popped out to me as very typically John Darnielle-esque. Once you start listening to The Mountain Goats non-stop, you can’t help but notice recurring approaches and motifs.

Some of these records (like Ghana) are compilations that include multiple EPs released in the mid-90s. The chronology might be a little off because of that. All in all, I’d say the albums below cover about 70-80% of Darnielle’s boombox releases. That’s still hundreds of songs. Imagine this as “liner notes to a compilation of not-greatest non-hits from the early career of a cult recording artist.”

Beautiful Rats Nest

Track: New Star Song

The chorus has a nice dynamic anticipation—two bars of straight quarter notes, breaking up the regular rhythmic pattern of the verses. It’s unexpected, it briefly slows things down and it leads directly to the change of the chorus. It’s a moment of actual pop songcraft, albeit a little clunky, in a record where few songs show that kind of inspiration.

Lyrical Darniellism – “The air was heavy and the sky was alive // and the Pacific Starlight Train wasn’t due in till 11:45”

Zopilote Machine

Track: Going to Georgia

A remarkable thing about John’s performance here is the way he deliberately seems to slow the tempo down at the beginning, to around 105 bpm, as if knowing that the intensity of the vocals is going to speed things up until the last chorus clocks in at 125 bpm. Another remarkable thing is how he switches between the low-key, talky delivery in the first line of the verses to the higher piercing yelp of the rest of the verse and the chorus. If he hadn’t done that switch, or placed it in a more predictable spot (like at the start of the chorus), it wouldn’t have been as memorable or effective.

Lyrical Darniellism – “The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway is that it’s you // and that you’re standing in the doorway”

Nine Black Poppies

Track: Going to Utrecht

This is the first song I heard from this listening exercise which had an element that became a feature of future classic songs like No Children or Alpha Rats Nest – the playful walking bassline high on the fretboard. Going to Utrecht, to be clear, is not a great example of that. The bass here is clumsy, aimless, out of tune, and it doesn’t really work in concert with the vocal melody. But it’s an early attempt to create depth and movement in the arrangement with an extra layer, and it shows where John was aiming to go in future releases.

Lyrical Darniellism – Surprisingly, there are no memorable lines in this song, although the verse does start with the time of the day (“In the morning…”), which is very much something John will do again and again throughout his career.

Sweden

Track: Whole Wide World

This is one of the earliest examples I’ve come across of a “Hushed Delivery” Mountain Goats song. It’s the type of quiet, understated song that John would often employ in the more introspective 2000s albums like We Shall All Be Healed and Get Lonely. He doesn’t go high, he doesn’t get nasal, he just observes his surroundings in a low, conversational murmur, and allows some space to let the suspended notes in the chords ring out. 

Lyrical Darniellism –  “The sky was still and the cold sun sank down beneath the snow // I hung by my hand from the tree outside”

Nothing For Juice

Track: Waving At You

Let’s talk about the noise from John’s boombox. It’s not a “hiss”, as some critics dub it, or even a mere “hum”. That would be little describing Kevin Shields’ guitar tone in My Bloody Valentine as just a “fuzz”. No, the sound of the Panasonic RX-FT500 has an entire aural body of its own. There is a tropical midrange density to it, a lulling rhythm from the whir of the motor, and it feels like it drunkenly speeds up and slows down. And sometimes, as in Waving At You, the entire messy mix manages to interact perfectly with the sound of the instruments. It’s as if the guitar is swimming in a sea of tonal noise, poking its head out of the water with every rhythmic hit. As the song progresses, the guitar gets louder and more insistent, gliding across the surface with longer strokes. But in the end, the water wins. It always does. It envelopes the final held chord and absorbs it into its depths until the whole thing fades out into nothing.

Lyrical Darniellism –  “Listen, you can tell your lawyer that he can go to hell”

Full Force Galesburg

Track: Maize Stalk Drinking Blood

Instrumentally, Darnielle’s forte has always been his rhythm guitar playing, and he hits his stride in this album. The right hand strumming in this song is quick and accurate, which allows the subtly changing chord shapes in his left hand to act as an implied bass line, while the accented beats he hits play the role of the kick drum, propelling the progression forward. It’s all very smooth and professional until 1:58, when he totally shanks the chord change. But it passes by in a split second and he keeps the rhythm going and if I hadn’t mentioned it, you probably wouldn’t have even noticed it. What did the jazz cats say - there are no wrong notes? 

Lyrical Darniellism - “This is an empty country, I am the king // and I should not be allowed to touch anything”

Protein Source of the Future… Now

Track: Going to Tennessee

For a prolific acoustic songwriter with an annoying voice, it’s surprising how little John Darnielle seems to have been influenced by Bob Dylan. If you had never listened to either artist’s music, but had just read their bios, you’d imagine them to be long lost brothers. But the only Mountain Goats songs that really channel Dylan are a few of these rough dirgey vamps, like Going to Tennessee. They may not sound that similar, but they at least evoke some of those loosey-goosey talking blues in early albums like the Freewhelin’ Bob Dylan. You could even imagine a frantic harmonica solo over the outro of this track, instead of the insistent rhythmic strumming that we get for the last 30 seconds. 

Lyrical Darniellism - “You are standing above me // You’ve washed your face with that apricot scrub again // I'm glad I'm alive”

Bitter Melon Farm

Track: Faithless Bacchant Song

There are many instances in the early releases of Darnielle trying out repeated single-note riff motifs that don’t quite work. They often break the flow of the progression, or they sound thin compared to the full chords they’re surrounded by. In this track, however, he gets the balance just right. He blends the riff nicely with some catchy rhythm guitar stabs, straight out of a power pop tune. You could picture him in his attic doing Pete Townshend windmills and knee raises as he strikes those final chords.

Lyrical Darniellism - “Somewhere in the damn forest // where the fat vines look like my brother's arms”

The Coroner’s Gambit

Track: Baboon

This album is dotted with additional instruments, but never in any consistent arrangement. Often it’s just a stray violin or harmonica or some out-of-tune pizzicato guitar. In Baboon, we get a kind of pump organ or melodica, and a proper drum kit for the first time, playing a rollicking tom-tom beat to go with John’s manic vocal delivery and nasty lyrics. It’s the most Decemberists-sounding track in the most Decemberists-sounding album title of the early Mountain Goats catalogue.

Lyrical Darniellism - “My defences may be working with a skeleton crew // but I'll be skinned alive before I'll take this from you”

Ghana

Track: Golden Boy 

If you are in the mood to be annoyed by John Darnielle and decide you want to hate the Mountain Goats for the rest of your life after hearing just one song, Golden Boy is probably the track to choose. It’s got an inside-jokey spoken intro, a cutesy lyrical conceit and a screechy vocal performance full of wavering sustained notes. It screams “Bible Camp Counsellor With Not Enough Inhibitions” at the helm. But, at the same time, there’s something about the abandon with which he sings such a silly fucking song that is mesmerising. He fully commits to the bit and somehow gets his reedy, strained voice to resonate in the most magnetic way. Ask me again tomorrow, though, and I might skip the song after 3 seconds.

Lyrical Darniellism - “There are no pan-Asian supermarkets down in hell // so you can't buy Golden Boy peanuts there”

All Hail West Texas

Track: The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton

My sister, being a younger Millennial, got a whole bunch of tattoos when she was in her twenties. Some of them were carefully thought-out and well executed by professional tattoo artists. Some were not. She is now in the process of either covering up or removing a few of the latter. Surprisingly, though, one of the tattoos she’s keeping is of a large goat on her left thigh, with the words Hail Satan written in an old-timey font below it. That’s how much this song means to her.

The funny thing about some of the Mountain Goats most distinctive and dramatic tracks—No Children, Broom People—is that, at their core, they’re dance songs. And by “dance” songs, I mean in the traditional, classical sense, in that they’re written in triple metre. In other words, they’re (sort of) waltzes. If you were so inclined, you could dance to them at your wedding. (Given how rabid and obsessive some of the band’s fans are, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve already done so).

The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton is another one of those “dance” songs. The triple metre feel forces a few peculiar (and inspired, in my eyes) word choices that also help to make the final “Hail Satan” refrain more surprising and powerful. Take the fact that the line is sung as “The best ever death metal band out of Denton”, not “in Denton”, like it appears in the title. Or the little addition of “in time” to the line “The best ever death band out of the Denton will in time both outpace and outlive you”. Those little nuances are not strictly necessary, but they help maintain the regular lilting delivery throughout the song, lulling us over the course of five verses, to then smack us in the face with the refrain (perhaps the ultimate Darnielleism):

”Hail Satan!
Hail Satan tonight!
Hail Satan
Hail, Hail”

Addendum [Dec 1 2024]: I sent my sister Esther a link to this post, and she responded with an addition/clarification. I wasn’t sure whether to include it at first. It’s very sweet, but it also feels a little personal and I wasn’t sure if the earnestness matched the tone of the piece.

But then I remembered a big part of The Mountain Goats’ whole appeal: owning up to those earnest, sentimental and borderline cringey feelings and releasing them into the world. Sharing your own brand of weird and vulnerable with the other vulnerable weirdoes in your orbit. It’s singing loudly, dancing badly, and sending half-drunken, but very touching, responses from the backs of Ubers.