| The Mountain Goats – Anti-Music Song Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| From what I know all of his songs were character songs until "We shall all be healed" and "the sunset tree"...and even we shall all be healed isn't entirely autobiographical. | |
| The Mountain Goats – All Devils Here Now Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I'm guessing it's either about a dysfunctional family or a bunch of tweekers who cook meth (only saying that because of john's history with amphetamine). Being from a highly dysfunctional family that's what it sounds like to me. | |
| The Mountain Goats – Pigs That Ran Straightaway into the Water, Triumph of Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| This song is simply about going to jail. It also probably refrences the san bernardino courthouse. | |
| The Mountain Goats – Palmcorder Yajna Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Ok this should be the final answer to this question. I've know tons of tweekers (meth users) and I live very near where this album "takes place". Here we go: 1.Holt blvd between gary and white - hooked up with some friends at the travel lodge set ourselves up for the night: Holt, Gary and White are three streets that go through the Ontario, rancho cucamonga and pomona area of Southern california (infact my methadone clinic is off holt blvd). There is currently no travel lodge exactly where he's saying but there IS a travelodge on East Holt in pomona. Tweekers often get together with their drugs and hold up in a room/house/motel for days at a time. 2.Carpenter ants in the kitchen flies in the screen it will be too late by the time we learn what these cryptic symbols mean: This line fits with John's intended "horror theme" of the entire album. The whole album is a "meth horror story". The carpenter ant and fly infestation in the motel they're held up in are like the settings of a horror movie that the audience notices before the characters in the movie do. 3.And I dreamt of a house haunted by all you tweekers with your hands out and the headstones climbed up the hills: He's looking back in a "dream" at all his old tweeker friends who didn't make it out of the (as he says) "calvalcade of monsters". Tweekers are known to always want things from other people "Hey Man you got five bucks?". The headstones part is about the impending doom of drug addiction. 4.Send somebody out for soda, comb through the carpet for clues. Reflective tape on our sweat pants, big holes in our shoes: Tweekers are known to guzzle large amounts of soda, one main reason (besides the corrosive nature of meth) that tweekers lose their teeth (i.e. "meth mouth"). "Comb through the carpet for clues" (a line only tweekers and coke heads would get) is about what tweekers/crack heads call "ghost hunting". Ghost hunting is when after you run out of your drugs your stimulant ridden, drug obsessed mind starts to believe that you dropped some dope somewhere. If you've seen the movie PARTY MONSTER when they smoke all of angels crack and bust open the radiator because they think they dropped a rock back there..Same thing. When they're on the floor they appear like they're a detective "Hunting for clues". 5.Every couple minutes someone says he cant stand it anymore laugh lines on our faces scale maps of the ocean floor: The first part is once again about the love/hate (the hate part) desperation of addiction. Im guessing the "scale maps of the ocean floor" part is about how tweekers all get obsessed on different quirks (reading, writing, drawing, playing video games, or in this case studying scale maps of the ocean floor) 6.And I dreamt of a camera pointing out from inside the television - and the amatures yawning and blinking and the headstones climbed up the hills: The camera part is about tweeker's paranoia that people are "watching them". The amatures yawning and blinking part is about how new speed users usually cant stay up nearly as long as the old heads can. And once again the impending doom of headstones. 7.If anybody comes to see me tell them they just missed me by a minute: Just like the line from another song on this album "We say we dont like the sunlight because it hurts our eyes but the real reason is because it makes us feel like we're dying" - When you've been up for three days on speed the last thing you want to do is see a sober person...mostly out of paranoia but also because you know you must look like a wreck. 8.If anybody comes into our room while we're asleep I hope they incinerate everybody in it: Just about the desperation one feels after either a long period of time being addicted to meth or a long "run" (run=a set of 2-7 days where you just stay up on meth). You just hope someone will burn you alive (the yajna reference - a sacrifice which is burned). 9.And I dreamt of a factory where they manufactured what I needed using shiny new machines and the headstones climbed up the hills: Him dreaming of this fantasy meth factory. I am 95% sure of my analysis of this song. If I'm wrong let me know. |
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| The Mountain Goats – Elijah Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| As far as I understand from what john has said and what i know about world religions it's about setting up a beautiful homecoming for someone who had spent time in prison/jail. | |
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