mountain goats day on eMusic!
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| John Darnielle | ||||
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See that up there? That’s John Darnielle, chief auteur and driving persona behind The Mountain Goats, on The Colbert Report last night, talking about his spectacular new record The Life of the World to Come (over here for you folks in the UK).
I cannot say enough incredible things about John. Seriously. He is the kind of musician and writer who truly deserves all of the recognition he’s been getting. That his career trajectory keeps going up and up and up and up is a testament not only to his drive and hard work, but his almost supernatural abilities. He is one of the finest writers in pop music, bar none.
His new record is like the anti-Curse Your Branches; John uses the Bible as inspiration, building each of The Life of the World…’s 12 songs around a specific Biblical passage — doing so without ever being preachy or hectoring. I get choked up every single time I listen to “Romans 10:9,” especially the part where he sings “A kind and loving God won’t let my small ship run aground.” It’s a beautiful portrait of faith and belief, a hopeful song, a song of perseverance and dedication. It’s one of my favorite songs of the year by a good distance (and, also, back in college when I was writing vaguely religious songs, I would have killed to come up with the line “Try to think of ways to fix myself but everything ends in a cul de sac”).
The Mountain Goats Perform “Psalm 40:2″ on The Colbert Report. I immediately covet Colbert’s vinyl.:
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Mountain Goats – Psalms 40:2 | ||||
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We’ve also got a cornucopia of Mountain Goats-related editorial. Douglas Wolk assembled a User’s Guide to the Mountain Goats for those who need help navigating the early 4-track recordings. And John himself has supplied us with a bevy of editorial. For the new record, he’s given us a Dozen of music that inspired The Life of the World to Come. There’s also this classic piece, where John talks about his five favorite Mountain Goats characters. And years ago, John provided us with a Dozen of his favorite records on eMusic, and a list of his favorite metal records as well.
Mountain Goats fans out there: what are your favorite Darnielle moments?
I’m not religious, nor am I antireligious, but I guess I’m irreligous (if that is a word). Based on that, there is no other band in the world who could have caused me to sit on my couch listening to an album with a Bible in my lap, like I did last night. Darnielle’s lyrics are always fascinating, but adding stories like that of Jacob and Sarah (“Genesis 30:3″) to them add a whole different level.
As for Darnielle moments, while I love a vast majority of his work, I’m not sure he could ever top “This Year.” That song just crushes me every time.
Craig
In contrast to the commenter above I am not only religious (Anglican, specifically) but decided to ‘go professional’ by doing my undergraduate degree in Theology (and I hate to be a pedant but Genesis 30:3 concerns Jacob and Rachel- Sarah was Jacob’s grandmother), and I think ‘The Life of the World to Come’ is one of the most important works of Biblical exegesis- interaction with and interpretation of the text- I have yet come across, musically or otherwise.
Darnielle pushes aside our tiring and pointless modern arguments about whether the author of Genesis was standing around taking notes at the moment of creation and other such nonsense and gets right to the heart of what this literature- or any literature- is really for; exploring what it means to try and keep on being and becoming human. I still can’t listen to ‘Matthew 25:21′ or ‘Deuteronomy 2:10′ without crying. Darnielle has a brilliant gift for making any and every character or thing he writes about intensely real within the confines of each song, and the interweaving of his lyrics with the Biblical verses adds a stunning dimension to what is already a great work.
I was already excited to be seeing him live this Saturday but finally hearing the new album has me itching to be there already and hear some of these wonderful songs in person.
tMG are among my favorite acts of the decade. My favorite moments, I think, are the way he inserts new acid-tipped lyrics into The Commodores “Sail On” (from Bitter Melon Farm, I think), the exposed-nerve he mines in “The Recognition Scene” and “Lion’s Teeth” (from Sweden and The Sunset Tree, respectively), and the full-band stomp of Sax Rohmer No.1 (from The Sunset Tree).
Thanks for the correction, katyhalo. Not being a pedant when it is a blatant error like that.
Craig
“what are your favorite Darnielle moments?”
This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUy7Gt_Mpk8