"The song's about accepting the permanence of one's condition. The narrator is a guy who's in and out of hospitals a lot. I've worked with people who've experienced that, and I always assume there has to come a point where it's really hard, but then you try to find some way to be OK with it. There's a lot of sadness in that song.
What I've been learning over the course of my life is that diagnoses exist to help get people services they need-- but there's no such thing as mental illness. We're all mentally ill and we're all haunted by something, and some people manage to find a way to ride it out so that they don't wind up needing extra help. So I think that "mental illness," as a term, is garbage. Everybody is in various states of needing to transcend something. I believe in mental health care, but when we call people "crazy," we exclude them from our circle. That's bogus-- you're in the same boat as they are! Maybe some people are better at pretending they don't harbor all kinds of issues, but, really, everyone has them. Everybody experiences reality in a way that's only true for them."
"The song's about accepting the permanence of one's condition. The narrator is a guy who's in and out of hospitals a lot. I've worked with people who've experienced that, and I always assume there has to come a point where it's really hard, but then you try to find some way to be OK with it. There's a lot of sadness in that song. What I've been learning over the course of my life is that diagnoses exist to help get people services they need-- but there's no such thing as mental illness. We're all mentally ill and we're all haunted by something, and some people manage to find a way to ride it out so that they don't wind up needing extra help. So I think that "mental illness," as a term, is garbage. Everybody is in various states of needing to transcend something. I believe in mental health care, but when we call people "crazy," we exclude them from our circle. That's bogus-- you're in the same boat as they are! Maybe some people are better at pretending they don't harbor all kinds of issues, but, really, everyone has them. Everybody experiences reality in a way that's only true for them."
-John Darnielle, Pitchfork interview
God that's a great quote
God that's a great quote
Beautiful! Anyone know where I can locate this interview?
Beautiful! Anyone know where I can locate this interview?
http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/8946-the-mountain-goats/ Pitchfork Interview link
http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/8946-the-mountain-goats/ Pitchfork Interview link
Colin Jensen http://www.colinjensen.com
Colin Jensen http://www.colinjensen.com