Blame It on the Tetons

I read the feature article in Spin last year about Modest Mouse and I found a copy of it on the magazine's website. If you haven't read it I suggest that you do, but here's a quote about Good News:

"its bright-side buoyancy suits the songs, which are about how life will beat your ass and how the only way to cope is to learn to love it anyway."

Keeping that in mind, this song makes a lot of sense to me. I think it exemplifies the quote's description of the songs on this album. The lines about everyone being a building burning make me think that they're saying that everyone is basically in the same boat. We all go through shit and there's always stuff that sucks in our lives. He then goes on to say that everyone is an ocean drowning and they should evaporate. Basically, really the only way to make things better is to stay above it all, lighten up about the shit because you're not alone and it's not going away anytime soon.

I also think the spider lines are a great example of this. You can spend your time focusing on the web, worrying about it, complaining about it, but there's other stuff, bad stuff in the case of this example, out there that we need to focus on. Don't dwell on one problem because there's another one coming and you're gonna have to deal with it. Similar idea with the dog. It apparently had license to bite somebody, but didn't. Don't waste time being angry about something and don't waste energy by being negative.

Now the Tetons. I really expect this to be the Indian reference, as someone pointed out earlier, as opposed to the mountains. I base this MM's recording history, most importantly the album "Lonesome Crowded West" because it feels like there're a lot of thematic elements having to do with Native Americans on it. My guess is that the reason he's blaming it on the Tetons is because the Tetons posed a large and recurring problem to the expansionist fervor that America was experiencing in the 1800s. They fought several costly wars with Americans and were basically mercilessly persecuted out of their territory over and over. Americans thought that the Tetons were a huge problem that needed solving, but in reality the Americans made them a problem when they didn't need to be. This goes along with the theme of making a big deal out of stuff that seems like it's impossible to get over or figure out but really is insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

So that's what I think. It took a long time to write. It is highly possible that I am reading way too much into the Teton reference, so if anyone else has another opinion I'd really like to hear it. Yes, I actually looked up the Tetons in a history book and did cursory research.

Ew I don't understand what's with you people and not liking this song.

"sight is just a window from the room we're bound to. If you find a way out, oh would you just let me know how?"

"Everyone's a building burning with no one to put the fire out. Standing at the window looking out, waiting for time to burn us down."

Um these are really good lyrics.

i went through the trouble of signing up just to tell you how retarded that sounded WallsTV

i haven't paid attention enough to put meaning into the whole song but the last part caught my attention earlier when this song was playing in the background of the room

Everyone's a building burning With no one to put the fire out

this might refer to our mortality were all slowly withering away where we stand and no one can really help us

Standing at the window looking out Waiting for time to burn us down

This refers to the perspective in which we live our lives in Our minds are standing in our head our whole lives

Everyone's an ocean drowning With no one really to show how

We're slowly drowning in the universe We have been randomly put here (in the looses sense) with no one to tell us what or how to do anything except for our instincts

They might get a little better air If they turned themselves into a cloud

People may enjoy life a little more if they see it for what it is (cloud over sea) instead for what it projects

these are just little thoughts i had while this song was playing

feedback would be greatly appreciated

"Blame it on the web but the spider's your problem now. Language is the liquid that we're all dissolved in. Great for solving problems, after it creates a problem. Blame it on the Tetons. God, I need a scapegoat now."

I'm pretty sure that this part's referencing a poem by Robert Graves, The Cool Web:

"[...] There's a cool web of language winds us in, Retreat from too much joy or too much fear: We grow sea-green at last and coldly die In brininess and volubility.

But if we let our tongues lose self-possession, Throwing off language and its watery clasp Before our death, instead of when death comes, Facing the wide glare of the children's day, Facing the rose, the dark sky and the drums, We shall go mad no doubt and die that way."

Personally I think this song's about apathy and emotional disengagement - always looking for someone else to blame the problem on, or cloaking it in words and avoidant behaviour. Everyone's a burning building, but people all around them are just standing there, too scared to just reach out and try to help.

Could somebody tell me what the word 'tetons' means, please. I couldn't find it from any dictionary.

Thanks.

Tetons are a Native American tribe. Google my friend, Google.

Tetons in the house of the late scapegoats?

The Tetons are a mountain range. I'm only assuming that THOSE are the Tetons of the song's namesake. Maybe it's about the absurdity of a scapegoat and looking for ANYONE or ANYTHING to blame, such as a mountain range, etc.

alright throwmetothespiders you are retarded, "first of, nobody previous to me except the guy who knows "tetons" refers to the souix indian tribe should be expressing their opinions" first of all this is supposed to be a discussion of what people think this song is about, so telling people not to talk because you think they are wrong is just retarded

and i disagree with you, if the song were talking about an indian tribe i dont think the song would make sense. Tetons are mountains, mountains are a metaphor for problems. so hes talking about how you can blame the way things are going on the problems but thats doesnt really work as a scape goat. eventually people have to rise above the problems, hence the thing about the clouds at the end of the song.

"blame it on the web but the spider's your problem now" i love that its like, everyone just stop carrying on about who's fault the situation is, and deal with the problem itself. kinda like the ridiculous climate change blame game, while no one actually does anything about it

Blame it on the Tetons. Yeah, I need a scapegoat now. No my dog won't bite you, though it had the right to. You oughta give her credit 'cause she knows I would've let it happen.

I believe it's about blaming our mothers (Tetons=Breast, the nipple that fed you as a baby) for raising us how we are. We blame the world for what it made us into because it's easier to blame others instead of yourself. The dog part is saying that he would let the dog bite you and the dog knows that but still chooses to not bite. Just because the dog can doesn't mean it's going to. It's being responsible.