Home Again Garden Grove

I guess in terms of the story of the album, "Your Belgian Things" is about when his friends meth lab explodes, "Mole" is about going to visit his friend in hospital and promising to take him to the desert , and this song is about actually busting him out of hospital ("Let's go where the jackals are breeding Wrap this bandanna around your head Don't let anyone see that you're bleeding")

garden grove is in california, by LA and Anaheim.

I agree with the "busting out of the hospital idea." I also think they're getting high again: "The warm love of God coursing through you."

"Let's go where the jackals are breeding" could refer to the imagery of Egyptian mythology where jackals lead souls to the afterlife, which would tie into the self-destructive recklessness of the song ("Shoving our heads straight into the guts of the stove"). More likely perhaps it's just a reference the line from Mole, "Out in the desert we'll live carefree", especially if you consider the subjects in the songs are the same.

I also like how Garden Grove is painted as a place of danger and destruction, given the irony of the peaceful name.

The line "wrap this bandana around your head, don't let anyone see that you're bleeding" always makes me think of the author David Foster Wallace who wore a bandana that became kind of a trademark look for him. He killed himself in 2008 after battling depression for a really long time, and Darnielle actually wrote a song about him in The Life of the World to Come. There's no way it could be reference in this song but it fits perfectly.

John at his lo-fi best.

"I can remember when we were in high school Our dreams were like fugitive warlords Plotting triumphant returns to the city "

Magic.

interesting chord progression

"Our dreams were like fugitive warlords"

Genius. John has such a gift for metaphor, and this line is one of his better ones. This song is probably in my top five of his pre-studio sound.

Best song on We Shall All Be Healed. Period. Yeah, I said it.

I don't really think that We Shall All Be Healed has that much of a cohesive storyline, it's more like a series of impressions. I think this one is just about how fast and wild it is to be young and high and on fire, and then how that manic energy gets diluted after a while...the transition from "I can remember when we were in high school" to "Now we are practical men of the world" sort of cements this for me. Unrelatedly, the line about "shoving our heads/straight into the guts of the stove" reminds me of Lucien Carr (on-and-off lover of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg), who put his head in a gas oven as "a work of art" and was subsequently hospitalized as suicidal. So...whenever I hear it I think of a bunch of half-mad intoxicated beat kids driving around in a green automobile.

ok, so exactly where is Garden Grove and what relevance does to have to John's life? i've heard him talk about Garden Grove a couple times and i just wanna know if it has effected his real life