Tallahassee

The Mountain Goats

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Bandcamp:
<a href="https://themountaingoats.bandcamp.com/album/tallahassee">Tallahassee by the Mountain Goats</a>

Tracklist + Lyrics:

Tallahassee

Window facing an ill-kept front yard
Plums on the tree heavy with nectar
Prayers to summon the destroying angel
Moon stuttering in the sky like a film stuck in a projector

And you
You

Twin prop airplanes passing loudly overhead
Road to the airport, two lanes clear
Half the whole town gone for the summer
Terrible silence coming down here

And you
You

There is no deadline
There is no schedule
There is no plan
We can fall back on

The road this far can't be retraced
There is no punchline anybody can tack on
There are loose ends by the score
What did I come down here for?

You
You
First Few Desperate Hours

Bad luck comes in from Tampa
Bad luck comes in from Tampa
On the back of a truck
Doing ninety up the interstate

We have bad dreams the night he rolls in
We have bad dreams the night he rolls in
And we try
To keep our spirits high

But they flag and they wane
When the truck pulls up out front in the light spring rain
And they sag like withering flowers
Let the good times roll on through these first few desperate hours

The driver drops his cargo at the curb
The driver drops his cargo at the curb
And the sun peeks in
Like a killer through the curtain

And when cloven hoof prints turn up in the garden
Yeah, when cloven hoof prints turn up in the garden
We keep up the good fight
We keep our spirits light

But they drop like flies
And there's a stomach-churning shift in the way the land lies
And they lean like towers
On a hillside, struggling to stand through these first few desperate hours
Southwood Plantation Road

I got you
You've got whatever's left in me to get
Our conversations are like minefields
No one's found a safe way through one yet

I spent a lot of money
I buy you white gold
We raise up a little roof
Against the cold

On Southwood Plantation Road
Where at night the stars blow like milk across the sky
Where the high wires drop
Where the fat crows fly

All night long
You giggle and scream
Your brown eyes
Deeper than a dream

I am not gonna lose you
We are gonna stay married
In this house like a Louisiana graveyard
Where nothing stays buried

On Southwood Plantation Road
Where the dead will walk again
Put on their Sunday best
And mingle with unsuspecting Christian men
Game Shows Touch Our Lives

Dug up a fifth of Hood River gin
That stuff tastes like medicine
But I'll take it
It'll do

On the couch in the living room all day long
Music on the television playing our song
And I'm in the mood
The mood for you

Turn the volume up real high
All of that money, look at it fly
And you smoking
Like a chimney

Shadows crawled across the living room's length
I held onto you with a desperate strength
With everything
With everything in me

And I handed you a drink of the lovely little thing
On which our survival depends
People say friends don't destroy one another
What do they know about friends?

Thunderclouds forming, cream white moon
Everything's going to be okay soon
Maybe tomorrow
Maybe the next day

Carried you up the stairs that night
All of this could be yours if the price is right
I heard cars headed down to oblivion
Up on the expressway

Your drunken kisses, as light as the air
Maybe everything that falls down eventually rises
Our house sinking into disrepair
Ah, but look at this showroom filled with fabulous prizes
The House That Dripped Blood

Look beyond the broken bottles
Past the rotting wooden stairs
Root out the wine-dark honeyed center
Not everyone can live like millionaires

Look through the air-thin walls
Tear up the floorboards, strip the paint
Go over every inch of space
With the patience of a saint

Grab your hat
Get your coat
The cellar door
Is an open throat

Look past the kitchen cabinets
Go through the chest of drawers
Scrutinize the casements
Rip the varnish off the doors

Dig up the laughing photographs
They're here somewhere or other
Take what you can carry
But let me tell you, brother

Still waters go stagnant
Bodies bloat
And the cellar door
Is an open throat
Idylls of the King

This place with its old plantations
These roads leading out to the sea
This day full of promise and potential
More clay pigeons for you and me

All of them, all of them
All of them, all of them
All of them, all of them
All of them, all of them all lined up

Huge crows loitering by the curb
Our shared paths unraveling behind us like ribbons
And I dreamed of vultures in the trees around our house
And cicadas and locusts and the shrieking of innumerable gibbons

All of them, all of them
All of them, all of them
All of them, all of them
All of them, all of them all lined up

How long will we ride this way about?
How long 'till someone caves under the pressure?
My dreams are haunted by armies, armies of ghosts
Faces too blurry to make out, numbers far too high to measure

Your face like a vision straight of Holly Hobby
Late light drizzling through your hair
Your eyes twin volcanoes
Bad ideas dancing around in there

All, all of them, all of them
All of them, all of them
All of them, all of them
All of them, all of them all lined up
No Children

I hope that our few remaining friends
Give up on trying to save us
I hope we come up with a fail-safe plot
To piss off the dumb few that forgave us

I hope the fences we mended
Fall down beneath their own weight
And I hope we hang on past the last exit
I hope it's already too late

And I hope the junkyard a few blocks from here
Someday burns down
And I hope the rising black smoke carries me far away
And I never come back to this town again

In my life, I hope I lie
And tell everyone you were a good wife
And I hope you die
I hope we both die

I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow
I hope it bleeds all day long
Our friends say it's darkest before the sun rises
We're pretty sure they're all wrong

I hope it stays dark forever
I hope the worst isn't over
And I hope you blink before I do
And I hope I never get sober

And I hope when you think of me years down the line
You can't find one good thing to say
And I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out
You'd stay the hell out of my way

I am drowning, there is no sign of land
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand
And I hope you die
I hope we both die
See America Right

I was driving in from Tampa when the radiator burst
I was three sheets to the wind, a civilian saw me first
And then there was the cop and then the children standing on the corner
Your love is like a cyclone in a swamp and the weather's getting warmer

I was getting out of jail, headed to the Greyhound
You said you'd hop on one yourself and meet me on the way down
I was shaking way too hard to think, dead on my feet, about to drop
Went and got the case of vodka from the car and walked the two miles to the bus stop

Got on the bus half-drunk again, the driver glared at me
Met up with you in Ingles, thumbed a ride to Cedar Key
If we never make it back to California, I want you to know I love you
But my love is like a dark cloud full of rain, always right there up above you
Peacocks

I hear them squeal
I see them preen
Fans all spread out
Neat and clean

Grab hold of the morning
Head out to the porch
Feel the wind stopping
Feel the sun scorch

I fear for my safety
You can see it in my eyes
In an hour or two
We will rise

Then a sharp breeze kicks up
I hug myself hard
How come there's peacocks
In the front yard?

Sun's all prickly
On my neck
When the helicopter passes
We both hit the deck

Hands grasping and groping
Seizing opportunity right where it lies
The sky will fall
We will rise
International Small Arms Traffic Blues

My love is like a powder keg
My love is like a powder keg in the corner of an empty warehouse
Somewhere just outside of town
About to burn down

My love is like a Cuban plane
My love is like a Cuban plane flying from Havana
Up the Florida coast to the 'Glades
Soviet made

Our love is like the border between Greece and Albania
Our love is like the border between Greece and Albania
Trucks loaded down with weapons crossing over every night
Moon yellow and bright

There is a shortage in the blood supply
But there is no shortage of blood
The way I feel about you, baby, can't explain it
You got the best of my love
Have To Explode

Tile floor of the bathroom, scrubbed clean and bright
Checkerboard white and gray
Towels from the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Kingston, Jamaica
I can still see the rust colored stains today

The stage is set, someone's going to do something someone else will regret
I speak in smoke signals and you answer in code
The fuse will have to run out sometime
Something here will eventually have to explode, have to explode

You and me lying on the tile floor, trying to keep cool, restless all night
Sweating out the poison as the temperature climbs
Staring up, up at the hundred-watt light that burns above
Name one thing about us two anyone could love

We roll out the red carpet when rotten luck comes down the road
Five, four, three, two, one, watch for the flash
Something here will eventually have to explode
Have to explode
Old College Try

From the housetops to the gutters
From the ocean to the shore
The warning signs have all been bright and garish
Far too great in number to ignore

From the cities to the swamplands
From the highways to the hills
Our love has never had a leg to stand on
From the aspirins to the cross-tops to the Elavils

But I will walk
Down to the end with you
If you will come
All the way down with me

From the entrance to the exit
Is longer than it looks from where we stand
I want to say I'm sorry for stuff I haven't done yet
Things will shortly get completely out of hand

I can feel it in the rotten air tonight
In the tips of my fingers, in the skin on my face
In the weak last gasp of the evening's dying light
In the way those eyes I've always loved illuminate this place

Like a trashcan fire in a prison cell
Like the searchlights in the parking lots of hell
I will walk down to the end with you
If you will come all the way down with me
Oceanographer's Choice

Well, guy in a skeleton costume comes up to the guy in the Superman suit
Runs through him with a broadsword
I flip the television off, bring all the bright lights up
Turn the radio up loud

I don't know why I'm so persuaded
That if I think things through
Long enough and hard enough
I'll somehow get to you

But then you came in and we locked eyes
You kicked the ashtray over as we came toward each other
Stubbed my cigarette out against the west wall
Quickly lit another

Look at that, would you look at that?
We're throwing off sparks
What will I do when I don't have you
To hold onto in the dark?

Yes, everybody's going to need a witness
Everybody's going to need a little backup in case the scene gets nasty
You throw the attic window open and I throw myself all around you
And night comes to Tallahassee

I don't know why it's gotten harder to keep myself away
Thought I'd finally beat the feeling back, it all came back today
And then we fell down and we locked arms, we knocked the dresser over as we rolled across the floor
I don't mean it when I tell you that I don't love you anymore

Look at that, would you look at that?
The way the ceiling starts to swerve
What will I do when I don't have you?
When I finally get what I deserve
Alpha Rats Nest

Ah, the lengthening hours in the refinery
Belching fire into the sky
We do our best vampire routines
As we suck the dying hours dry

The night is lovely as a rose
If I see sunlight hit you
I am sure that we'll both decompose

Ah, the fitful sleep and the fire engines
That I dream of when I dream
Someday we'll both wake up for good
I will try hard not to scream

The evening wind will shake the blinds
You're stirring from your slumber
We've got something hateful on our minds

Oh, sing, sing, sing
For the dying of the day
Sing for the flames that will rip through here
And the smoke that will carry us away

Yeah, sing for the damage we've done
And the worse things that we'll do
Open your mouth up and sing for me now
And I will sing for you

Vinyl Details

Not much to say from a technical standpoint. It's a regular black vinyl, but what it lacks in pizzaz it makes up for in really nice sound quality. A side ends at "No Children," which is a solid place to cut it.

Personal Thoughts

When I bought this album, the only track from it I'd heard was "No Children." It was one of those days where I saw it at the record store and really wanted to buy something, so I pulled up the album on spotify and loitered as long as I could making sure I liked the other tracks enough to justify getting it. And it ended up being a great choice! "No Children" is still great, but hearing it in context with the rest of the album makes it even better.

My summary of the album's story is this: you've got two people who got married too quickly and their relationship was too dependent on alcohol. Though they really wanted to make the relationship work, and gilded it with a fancy-looking house and gifts, they go back and forth between desperately clinging and being horrible to each other. It doesn't seem like there's a clear resolution by the end of the album, just a realization that this cycle will keep continuing. (If you have different interpretations of the story, I'd love to hear them on my neocities profile!)

The story of this album actually reminds me of my dad's parents, specially with the title "Tallahassee," since they lived in Florida. They eventually got divorced and are now both passed away, but they were both alcoholics and seemed to have a complicated relationship. My grandma moved back in with my grandpa for the last few years of her life. According to my dad, even though she was horrible to him, he could never say no to her. I wasn't close to either of them, so I don't have a strong emotional attachment, but it's interesting to listen to this album and imagine how they were probably actually in love once.

One of my favorite things about this album is the jarring juxtaposition in the lyrics. Lines like "The night is lovely as a rose / If I see sunlight hit you / I am sure that we'll both decompose" and "In the way those eyes I've always loved illuminate this place / Like a trashcan fire in a prison cell don't go in the way you expect, just like the relationship didn't go the way the narrator expected. It's funny in a morbid way. As a certified fictional divorce enjoyer, I think it's fantastic.

Last thing I'd like to comment on is how the titles often don't seem to have anything to do with the lyrics. In some tracks, I have no idea what this means. But in a lot of them, it adds to the story by giving context (think "No Children" potentially implying the couple's failure to have children might be affecting their relationship) that you wouldn't otherwise get from the lyrics alone. There's a lot of ways to interpret this, and I think it's neat.

Favorite Track

How can I pick. It works best listening to the whole album in one go. But I guess if I haaaaave to pick I'll say "Old College Try," but "Southwood Plantation Road," "Have to Explode," and "Alpha Rats Nest" are all super close!

Rating: Love Loses! /5

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