John Darnielle is a songwriter best known for his vivid narratives. On every Mountain Goats release, he paints portraits of characters in varied, sometimes unusual, but real situations, most notably the “Alpha Couple� that he has peppered his records with, and around which he crafted the album Tallahassee. On last year’s The Sunset Tree, Darnielle’s lyrics were his most personal to date, as he belted out cathartic tales from his troubled childhood. In the case of The Mountain Goats’ latest, Get Lonely, Darnielle claims that he’s taken his songs even closer to a deeply internal place.
“I feel that (Get Lonely) is kind of more personal in some ways, though it's not telling stories from my past,� Darnielle says. “What it is trying to do, what the point of it is, sorta, is to express or describe feelings that aren't exaggerated for effect or written large for the sake of the canvas. I mean, usually, in any art form, you often find yourself using broad strokes so that everybody gets the picture.
“This time I wanted to write songs that would give a real sense of what it feels like to be lonely, to feel alone even when you're around friends and family—that empty feeling that just comes in sometimes, like a breath of really cold air. It's a very hard feeling to experience, and I know it's actually something many people, including myself, often feel, sometimes for months or years at a time. And I wanted to see if I couldn't give that feeling voice. I think that's why there are so many comparatives in the lyrics: it's an abstract condition, and it's kind of its own thing, so it seeks out physical points of comparison—wet leaves in gutters, drifters at onramps, prisoners suddenly set free, and so forth.�
The feeling that Darnielle describes becomes very real on Get Lonely, particularly in the title track and “Maybe Sprout Wings,� which have stark arrangements to mirror the loneliness and somberness of the lyrics. And, as such, Get Lonely is very much a different record than its predecessor. One would assume that the task of writing a new album after having written 400 some-odd songs can be quite daunting, and Darnielle admits that it can be, though it has little or nothing to do with having such an extensive back catalogue.
“Every song I write is, for me, like an attempt to write The One Song That'll Allow Me To Stop Writing Songs,� Darnielle says. “Not in terms of writing a hit song or anything, you understand. I don't expect that. It's just, there's this idea that every song, or poem, or book is an attempt to do a single thing, to write a poem or song or book that expresses all ones ideas concisely and completely and doesn't demand further explanation. That sort of finishes the job, you know?�
Upon further examination, however, Darnielle confesses that, while literary theorist Maurice Blanchot wrote on the topic, this idea may have actually come from comic books. “There was this character in a supergroup called the Inhumans, his name was Black Bolt, and his voice was a deadly weapon. If he even made a sound, it would knock down whole cities. So he never spoke. Except once or twice, ever.
“I don't want my songs to destroy stuff, but I feel like Black Bolt was like the ultimate songwriter.�
Jeff Terich
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The Mountain Goats' album Get Lonely is out August 22, 2006 on 4AD Records.
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