| The Mountain Goats – This Year Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Like many other songs, Darnielle stitches together the personal and the universal using a scene that taps into our humanity. On the one hand, here is a Boy (here is John), harboring a miserable home life, hating and fearing his stepfather, escaping into the city and underage drinking, meeting a girl he loves, swearing he will forge on through his personal hell. On the other hand, here is Every Teen, harboring inexplicable isolation and disconnect, hating and (pretending s/he isn't) fearing authority, escaping into risky and often self-destructive tendencies, meeting a kindred soul entwined in platonic or romantic love, swearing that s/he will survive adolescence and the misery they're sure is eternal. The line about Jerusalem is the most important line in the song. It is at once strong and fragile, hopeful and doomed. "Next year in Jerusalem" is customarily repeated at the end of Yom Kippur and the Passover Seder, expressing the desire to soon see a people traditionally scattered across the globe in unanimous celebration in their most sacred place. It's a strong spiritual conviction, ingrained within the orthodoxy, and a hope passed down through the generations. The sentiment is tied into the song to juxtapose the tragedy of the religious and youthful optimism. There is never going to be a "Next year in Jerusalem"; the area is fraught with violence, extremism, and political machinations, and there is an inescapable history that surrounds that physical location. Likewise, there isn't a magic Next Year for John. All of the Boy's hope, all of Every Teen's hope, won't change the fact that his/her home and adolescence is abusive/manipulative/painful/destructive, that there is inescapable history between the walls of his/her home. It's almost a cruel cosmic joke that these "Chosen People" -- supposedly blessed by God, and these young boys and girls -- innocent and symbolic of humanity's future, are so earnest and so far from finding their cultural reprieve. Instead, Next Year will be no different, no closer to Jerusalem. And there's a sense that these people know -- years of repetition highlights how unlikely the promise of Jerusalem is and "ready for the bad things to come..." suggests he knew there was no escape from the beginning -- but can't face the hopelessness of it. But maybe the point is that believing in Next Year is all that matters. Because the only he and she and they and you and me can do is carry on through the present singing: "I am gonna make it through this year If it kills me" |
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| The Mountain Goats – Sept. 15, 1983 Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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The song is indeed about Michael James Williams (a.k.a. Prince Fari I) and the day he was murdered, but like most of the songs on Heretic Pride and in Darnielle's oeuvre, it references some larger concepts in life. It's about Good dwelling in a land of Evil, that is, how good people suffer despite their efforts. The verses straightforwardly outline the murder of Prince Fari I, but also include several mentions of the theme (e.g. "Try you whole life to be righteous and good..." and "Where will the wicked run...") emphasizing the tragedy and injustice of the act. The murderers referred to as "servants of the pharaoh" (a well-known enemy of the Israelites) sets up the complex biblical parallel that runs throughout the song. The line about "forgetting Israel..." is a reference to Psalms 137:5, written when the Israelites felt they were unjustly in Babylonian captivity, trapped among wickedness. In the psalm, the author swears that if he were to forsake the holy city (i.e. metaphorically forsake his God and his spiritual oaths) then he might as well forget how to play his songs, work the fields, and lose every the ability to do every action that sustains his life. He proclaims his innocence and devotion amidst his and his people's suffering, much like how Darnielle imagines Williams must have felt on his violent deathbed, bleeding and choking on his own blood, slain in a world where good people suffer evil and often get no justice. These ideas are further complicated when you consider that the subjects' innocence is only proposed and maintained by the subjects themselves. That is, from another point of view, the Israelites killed as many Babylonians as vice versa and had them captive at different points. And who's to say that Prince Fari I wasn't involved in something that never came to light? Violent deaths like that, after all, are more often than not a result of bad friends, bad vices, and worse decisions. In any case, the song is clear in its recognition that the suffering and violence, regardless of origin, is a tragedy. Nobody deserves to die like that, least of all those with passion for something greater than their own hand. |
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| Tegan and Sara – Nineteen Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I feel like along with the long-lasting relationship, there's a moment of sexual realization. There's hints of a confused person thinking back on the girl/boy and the moment that led him/her at age nineteen (an age many people are finishing their first year of college) to explore/discover/accept this queer sexuality that they "felt in their legs and heart" "calling" for them long before they met/knew/named it. Maybe it wasn't meant to have that element but the emphasis on uniqueness and pained inevitability makes it feel like something beyond just a deep romantic relationship. | |
| Flight of the Conchords – Carol Brown Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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In contrast to the comment about the song being messy, I'd say that behind the cheeky and funny veneer, it's a startlingly mature song with a very consistent theme. At first, we hear this guy talk about how he's been hurt in the past. He plays the saddest violin and croons the last line of the first verse -- "I'm hoping that you'll stick around" -- and reveals a humorous vulnerability and looks like he's got a new girl hook, line, and sinker. As his ex-girlfriends start to reveal his true self (lazy, immature, non-committal) you hear his other lines like "How can we ever know..." and "Love is a mystery..." and you start to think that maybe the whole "X left me..." is just another part of his childish mishandling of relationships. "Would you like a little cereal?" clenches it and reveals the boy hiding behind the facade. All of that while still being funny, catchy, and being a soft commentary on the genre of sad men singing for their broken relationships (particularly obvious when taking into account the name-check to Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"). A truly well-crafted song. |
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| Modest Mouse – The World at Large Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The more I listen to this song, the more I feel that you have to take as the first part of Float On, the song the follows it on the record. Both songs share a very similar melody and straight rock-march beats and together, they feel like bipolar, mirror-image reflections on the same worldview: 1) World at Large - A melancholic meditation on drifting through the dispassion and confusion of a cruel world 2) Float On - An optimistic, almost flippantly punk chant about embracing peace in a fascinating and ever-changing world I can't listen to one without the other anymore. If I ever feel hopeless or lost or inadequate, the combination of deep introspection and laugh-it-off optimism brings me right around like no other. |
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