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In Corolla Lyrics
The day I turned my back on all you people
I felt an itching in my thumbs
Salt air like a broadcast from the distant dark beyond
When my transformation comes
I went down to the warm warm water
Saw a pelican fly past
Waved once at the highway and then left all that behind me
I went wading through the grass
And no one was gonna come and get me
There wasn't anybody gonna know
Even though I leave a trail of burned things in my wake
Every single place I go
And it was cool and it was quiet
In the humid marsh down there
I let my head sink down beneath the brackish water
Felt it gumming up my hair
The sun was sinking into the Atlantic
The last time that I turned my back on you
I tried to summon up a little prayer as I went under
It was the best that I could do
And I said let them all fare better than your servant
The reeds all pricking at my skin
Here's hoping they have better luck than I had down here with you
All that water rushing in
I felt an itching in my thumbs
Salt air like a broadcast from the distant dark beyond
When my transformation comes
Saw a pelican fly past
Waved once at the highway and then left all that behind me
I went wading through the grass
There wasn't anybody gonna know
Even though I leave a trail of burned things in my wake
Every single place I go
In the humid marsh down there
I let my head sink down beneath the brackish water
Felt it gumming up my hair
The last time that I turned my back on you
I tried to summon up a little prayer as I went under
It was the best that I could do
The reeds all pricking at my skin
Here's hoping they have better luck than I had down here with you
All that water rushing in
Song Info
Submitted by
mdon06 On Jul 12, 2006
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RE: "The sun was sinking into the Atlantic"
Corolla is in the Outer Banks; like islands, there's ocean on both sides. I've not personally been to that part of the outer banks, but it's about two miles east of "mainland" North Carolina. So there's probably enough water for a fairly nice sunset.
After hearing that last line, I shuddered as I realized he was drowning himself. It's not only an ending to a song, but an ending for the whole album. A very haunting bit of closure for the lonliness described throughout the entire recording...Chilling. And Perfect.
kinda creeps me out to hear this for another reason. the mountain goats live in durham, nc. i live on the outer banks of nc, not too far away, and with the ocean references i'm assuming the title refers to corolla, nc, which i live right near and which i used to work in. kind of odd, in a way.
suicide.
He did this at the end of a live show in Ithaca NY, and in a room of 200 people you could have heard a pin drop. You needed to be that quiet: his voice was barely more than a whisper, but god what a punch this song packs. I saw people crying by the end. That was back when the record had only just come out a few days ago, so many people hadn't heard the song before. I think it took them by surprise.
It is servant, not serpent. Yes, there's reference earlier in the album to him being a snake to her Eve, but this is a prayer to God, not to her. Additionally, the final word here is them instead of you:
Here's hoping they have better luck than I had down here with them*
"Them" is referencing other people in general. Kind of a "hope they do better than I did," a half-assed prayer before "all that water rushing in" and the narrator drowns.
Today was the first I really heard all the lyrics and it is easily one of the most devastating songs I've heard.
Now, it may just be that I'm extremely dense, but I don't understand the line that reads "The sun was sinking into the Atlantic". The sun sets in the west relative to one's position, so how could the narrator be in North Carolina or anywhere in America for that matter and see the sun sinking into the Atlantic?
@ALackofColorHere maybe the narrator was just too mentally ill to realize exactly where the sun was setting. There's another Mountain Goats character (in the song "Baboon" on the Coroner's Gambit album) where an enraged lunatic thinks to sun is rising in the west. So this seems to be a common thing with Mountain Goats characters. They are so mentally unstable that they can't even tell where the sun is rising and setting.
@ALackofColorHere maybe the narrator was just too mentally ill to realize exactly where the sun was setting. There's another Mountain Goats character (in the song "Baboon" on the Coroner's Gambit album) where an enraged lunatic thinks to sun is rising in the west. So this seems to be a common thing with Mountain Goats characters. They are so mentally unstable that they can't even tell where the sun is rising and setting.
I don't think this is a suicide- it seems more of a "So, I wanted to kill myself but I couldn't even do that" sort of a thing. Cathartic and melodramatic, maybe, but it could help him move on.
I think the lyrics are *your servant, aren't they?
oh god i go to corolla every year. this is perfect.