John, John, and Jesus

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Matthew 6:5-6 (NIV)

“Hail Satan!
Hail Satan tonight!
Hail Satan!
Hail, hail!” -“The Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Denton,” The Mountain Goats

One reason I find The Mountain Goats so beautiful is because it is so truly, quietly, Christian.

The Mountain Goats has been a misnomer from the start, as the band has generally been, until recently, the work of one musician, John Darnielle. But while the image of Darnielle standing on stage, introducing himself as The Mountain Goats, is no longer accurate, and his songs have become increasingly less low-fi, and more advanced, his subject matter has remained the same: society’s outcasts and subcultures. Addicted to hard drugs as a young man, Darnielle moved beyond his chemical addictions, but not beyond the sense of camaraderie for people who might steal from you when you’re asleep, but would stand up for you when needed. This feeling is clear in Darnielle’s many songs about immigrants, drug addicts, the lonely, and drug addicts, again, especially in the album “Transcendental Youth.”

I’m drawn to Darnielle’s music because of his consistent sympathy for the downtrodden. Darnielle's subject choice was probably affected by his time as a drug addict, and as an employee in psychiatric hospitals and rehabilitation clinics. This sympathy is clear in “San Bernardino,” in which a young unmarried couple gives birth in a motel bathtub, or as Darnielle describes them for eMusic, "people who others talk down to: young mothers and fathers who have no prospects, no money, nothing going on." The couple is in trouble, but their love for each other and sheer optimism give the song a hopeful ending, even if, as Darnielle notes, “the world isn’t giving them its best yet.”

Yes, Darnielle’s songs reference demons, witchcraft, and Judas, to the point where the official fan podcast (which he co-hosts alongside Joseph Fink, the creator of Welcome to Night Vale) ends its episodes with “Hail Satan.” And yes, Darnielle may sing "Unfurl the black velvet altar cloth. Draw a white chalk Baphomet" in “Cry for Judas,” but such lyrics show the frustration of youth dealing with inner demons. These references are fitting, as Darnielle characteristically drifts towards those at the emotional nadir of their lives, as they lash out, give in, or find hope. Even when referencing Satan itself, Darnielle describes it in interviews and concerts as the temptation that we often give into (or once as akin to Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost). As Darniele explains in an introduction to "In Memory of Satan," "This is the thing I'm always trying to point out...the devil I'm talking about is not the devil you actually like, it's not the devil of whisky and smokes or whatever. It's the devil who stands between you and the things you hoped to become." As Darnielle explains in a piece for eMusic, "I try not to excuse the destructive things adolescents sometimes do to express their pain, but in my gut, when I write a song in which a couple of teenagers vow to take revenge on the grownups who're fucking up their lives, well, I cast my lot with the teenagers. They may do wrong sometimes, but their hearts aren't rotten yet, and the light is strong within them.” Darnielle’s characters and lyrics may praise demons and Satan, as Darnielle takes gives voice to people whose lives are full of struggle, but while we’re meant to feel sympathy for humans, there is no sympathy for the true Devil.

In an interview with The Observer, Darnielle admits, “I’m a Christian, I believe in the radical egalitarian message of Christ Ministry,” before laughing. Later in the same interview, Darnielle’s focus becomes abundantly clear: “The underlying issues in all that I do are issues of compassion.” Perhaps I shouldn’t pretend Darnielle’s Christianity is hidden. The Mountain Goats' twelfth studio album, "The Life of the World to Come," is clearly Christian. Not only is each track named after a Bible verse, but the title itself comes from the Nicene Creed. Satan, Baphomet, black veils on crosses, are just disguises for a level of compassion that can still seem radical after 2,000 years.

Some of the songs I find the most beautiful are about taking in people in need, even if you yourself are struggling. A prime example is “The Color in Your Cheeks.” Here, people from Taipei to Mexicali, “from Zimbabwe, or from Soviet Georgia, East Saint Louis, or from Paris, or…across the street” are welcomed to a home. The plural narrators aren’t doing so well, and there are hints of meth addiction: as the chorus states “we haven’t slept for weeks.” And yet, “we gave him what we had…it was the least we could do to make our welcome clear.” The point is again made clear in the refrain: “drink some of this, this’ll put the color in your cheeks.” In his fan podcast, Darnielle notes that, while the people in the song may not be the best people, they can still help when needed: “This is something I would find among doper friends. They would rob you and each other, but there’s also an extent of protection, there’s a clannishness that can feel real safe in an unsafe time...they will rob me if I fall asleep, but they would protect me in a time of trouble.”

In discussing “The Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Denton” on his podcast, Darnielle explains, “You don’t need the Bible to know that excluding a bunch of people because of who they are for the same opportunity everybody else had, this is not a Biblical question…for sure, if you believe the basic precepts of the guy who got nailed to a tree, number one is, you don’t deny anybody a seat at the table. That’s the central teaching of the whole deal, is that everybody’s invited.” This episode was recorded shortly after Trump was elected, so the contrast between Trump’s comically performative Christianity, and Christ’s precepts, was hard to miss, especially for the podcast hosts.

One of Darnielle’s best, and most sympathetic songs, is about a real man, Manuel “Bull” Ramos. A villain in the televised wrestling matches Darnielle consumed as a child, Ramos is depicted as a christlike figure. Echoing the theme of sanctuary in "Color in Your Cheeks," Ramos sings that "any of my old friends who have no place to turn to, they know to call me any time they come through." Even as Ramos loses a leg, kidney, and his sight to diabetes complications, he remains proud, and the song as upbeat as Ramos' mood. The song ends with Ramos’ death and resurrection, his legacy secure: "Never die, never die...rise, rise, surrounded by friends."

I find echoes of Darnielle’s Christian empathy for his downtrodden characters in the music of John K. Samson, frontman for the Weakerthans, and earlier a member of Propaghandi. Samson shares Darnielle’s sense of geography, but while the latter’s songs focus on obscure towns across the US, Samson’s lyrics are firmly anchored in his hometown of Winnipeg, although his characters occasionally make it as far as western Ontario.

In an increasingly downtempo and moving tetralogy spread out across 13 years and four albums, Samson sings about the relationship between a depressed alcoholic (commonly seen as a surrogate for Samson himself) and his cat, Virtute. This being Samson, the cat’s name comes from Winnipeg’s motto: “Unum Cum Virtute Multorum” (“One with the Strength of Many.”) Part I, “Plea From a Cat Named Virtute,” is energetic and in major key, and would work as a catchy rock anthem if not for its lyrics. The feline singer addresses its owner, who is in the midst of a depressed slump. Between hammer-ons, Virtute nudges its owner towards recovery, recommending they throw a party, and threatening to taste its owner’s “tinny blood” if ignored. The song ends with the reminder, “I know you’re strong.”

By Part II, “Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure,” these pleas have indeed been ignored. A downtempo piece, the singer’s voice wanders, like its subject. Having lost its owner figuratively, Virtute has run away, even if it doesn’t fully understand why, and lost its owner physically as well. Ignored its owner’s attempts to find it, it has retreated into the unhappy life of a stray. Forgetting its name, “The sound that you found for me,” it’s gotten into fights with the neighboring tabby that it was friendly with in Part I, and lost the tips of its ears to frostbite. Although its memory is fading after at least a year, it still misses its owner and its loving, pre-depression life.

Virtute’s disappearance is clearly permanent by Part III, “17th Street Treatment Center.” Perhaps this song doesn’t match, and I should be writing about a Virtute Trilogy, but the narrative shifts here to the owner, being treated for alcoholism in a rehab clinic. Here, with its varied cast of addicts and camaraderie, we could easily have a Darniele song, albeit an unusually slow one. By this album, Samson has become a solo performer, having left The Weakerthans, even if he continued to play and record with its members. Virtute does make a meta appearance in a song the narrator sings “about the spring the cat ran away.” Joined by “the punk and the priest and the real estate agent, the girl with no teeth and the shaky Marine, the Serbian Deadhead who wears his sunglasses,” the narrator is finally in a hopeful Purgatory. The song begins cautiously optimistic, “On the twenty-first day, the sun didn’t hate me, the food wasn’t angry, the bed didn’t sigh. The ceiling said it’s possible I might get my looks back.” While the narrator may not normally have met, much less had anything in common with his fellow patients, their situation unites them: “In for three weeks or in for forever, here at the 17th Street Treatment Center. Most of us probably not getting better, but not getting better together.”

Trilogy or tetralogy, Virtute’s saga ends with “Virtute at Rest.” Here, the narrators are joined together: Virtute, presumably dead, remains “in the back of your brain where the memories flicker,” a source of love, wisdom, and strength. Virtute remains a cat, “paw[ing] at the synapses, bright bits of string.” This is Samson’s slowest, and most moving piece, lines and words delivered slowly, sometimes doled out in isolation. The effect is austere and sparse, each word given full meaning. Here, Virtute could also be a past love that Samson has moved on from: The Weakerthans. Perhaps Samson is telling his fanbase that it’s time to move on. Certainly the tetralogy matches Samson’s transformation from punk bassist to indie rock frontman to solo singer-songwriter. Yet, at a surface level, this song remains moving: “You should know that I am with you, know I forgive you, know I am proud of the steps that you’ve made. Know it will never be easy or simple, know I will dig in my claws when you stray. So let us rest here like we used to, in a line of late afternoon sun. Let it rest, all you can’t change. Let it rest and be done.”

Okay, we’ve been off topic for four somewhat long paragraphs. We’ve seen empathy and love, but it’s familial, not purely Christ-like, save perhaps for the rehab clinic number. The Pharisees presumably loved each other, as did the Romans, even those who doled out names like Prima, Secunda, Tertita, and Quartia (although, to be fair, these poor children may have been named for their birth months instead of order of birth).

Samson’s sense of empathy can be more blunt, as in “Postdoc Blues,” which begins by soothing a postdoc whose “presentation went terrible, all wrong dongles, sweat stains, and stares.” The singer reminds the postdoc that he believes in their mission, that time is short, and reminds them of their motivation: “take that laminate out of your wallet and read it. And recommit yourself to the healing of the world, and to the welfare of all creatures upon it. Pursue a practice that will strengthen your heart.” This card, a rewording of Joanna Macy’s Buddhist “Active Hope,” is connected to the LEAP Manifesto (a call for First Nation rights and efforts to combat climate change in Canada, which has created a music video for this song). It is also a clear reference to Tikkun Olam, the modern Jewish concept of healing the world. Perhaps this is a clear sign of how religions dovetail. As Darnielle notes, “There not a theme I could not wrap Christianity around. [Emphasis writer's own] You could do that with any religion at all, Buddhism, Islam, Taoism. A religion’s whole job is to describe the world for you…and the people in it…to give you a light to understand the phenomena of the world.” Samson’s biography has been more mainstream than Darnielle’s, and yet he still writes sympathetically for lonely characters, as in the homesick sanatorium patient in “Letter in Icelandic from the Ninette San,” which is also referenced in “When I Write my Master’s Thesis,” which I wish I’d known about when I was writing my own Nordic history Master’s thesis.

Perhaps working Samson into this piece was a bit of a stretch. But this is a fan-piece, both are extraordinary lyricists, and I feel they deserve larger followings. Empathy and compassion is universal within religions (although this can vary--no religions go as far as Jainism), yet one of the central virtues I took to heart from my Catholic upbringing is sympathy for everyone, especially the outcast. I’m not necessarily very good at it, and can be as hypocritical as everyone else, despite my own lonely childhood. It can be painful to see Christianity wielded as a weapon by those who seem the least fit to lead its followers, but I can find solace in music, and as shown above, find some of its most beautiful aspects reflected between references to its showy supernatural antagonists.

Wisconsin Gothic

While the regional Gothic meme isn't so fresh anymore, I thought I would try my hand at Wisconsin Gothic:

You always visit the North Woods. Even when you tire and drive south, you end up in the North Woods. You get hired aboard a laker, but when you cross Lake Superior, you still find yourself in the North Woods

On a hill, there is a mill. Past the mill is a walk. On the walk is a key. Those few who use the key and return smell of yeast and speak of a museum that flaps its wings at noon.

The county highway names spell out a message as you drive towards Door County: G-O-H-O-M-E-F-I-B-S

Every supper club has a portrait of Vince Lombardi. His eyes follow you even when you’re in another room, facing the other way.

The cows are happy. The cows must always be kept happy.

You once felt apathy for the Packers, but then you were crowned with cheese. Now you never feel sympathy for the other teams. Now the cheese never comes off. Now you are always a cheesehead.

You drive to O'Sheridan Street with your friends and laugh as you drive towards the capitol and it seems to recede. You turn onto John Nolen Drive and cross the lake towards the isthmus, but the city only gets smaller and smaller. You turn around, but are met with flat, unmarked roads, for as far as you can drive.

We do not speak of Brett Favre. Or Joseph McCarthy.

Drawn by lights, you find yourself at a chautauqua. Inside, the cultists fervently chant, “Bob La Follette, fight for us!” Beneath their hoods, you recognize the aged members, whose names grave your local cemetery. Standing next one row over is your great-grandfather, who died at Belleau Wood.

Visitors gawk at and joke about the ice fishermen in winter. But when summer comes, the ice thaws, and the ice fishermen are still walking on the lake, even the Flatlanders know to stay silent.

The cheese curds squeak. You’ve noticed there are patterns in the squeaks, which sound like Morse Code. You know better than to listen. You deep fry the curds instead.

There is no point in driving. Every four-way intersection is haunted by the spirits of drivers who died while politely waving other drivers into the intersection.

You are told that there is a land to the northwest that is a mirror image of your own. The same people sit in the same homes, speaking with the same accent and eating the same casseroles. But they have horns, wear purple, and covet your lakes.

On May 17th, you eat fish soaked in an alkali until it is gelatinous, and reminisce about an “Old World.” You shudder as you think of this ancient land and its decadent cuisine, and wonder if the “fish” was a neighbor.

When winter comes and the ferry to Madeline Island stops running, the island itself disappears. The island comes back into existence when the ice road forms, but during warm winters, the island doesn’t reappear until March. Its students never leave school, forever trying to make up for lost time.

From the cliffs of Devil’s Island, you can see distant lights to the north, blinking. People are occasionally drawn to the lights and their promise of another land, but nobody returns.

In November, menfolk don bright orange, and commune in short wooden towers. If the spirits show favor, they return with giant bones, or are blessed with ginseng. Those who are cursed return empty-handed, chanting: "Waukesha, Waunakee, Waupaca, Waupun, Wausau, Wausaukee, Wautoma, Wauwatosa, Wauzeka, Milwaukee, Pewaukee!”

You hear coyotes howling in the distance, and step outside to look. There is silence. You step back inside. The howling returns, much louder.

Your town has a church and a bar, across the street. On Sunday, the church is full, the bar empty. For the rest of the week, the bar is full, and the church empty. There are no doors, and you have never seen anyone leave.

You used to come to Mount Horeb to look at the trolls, sitting in front of homes, the dentist office, shops. Now they come to stare at you.

Every winter, a derelict car is pushed to the center of the lake, and bets are taken on when it will fall through the ice. The winner has the honor of being fed to the muskie that lives below the surface.

You turn on the radio and hear Michael Feldman ask, “whad’ya know?" “Not much!” responds the audience. You change the channel. “Not much!” the announcer cries. You switch to a music station. “Not much!” yells Justin Vernon. “Not much!” chants the crowd gathering in front of your home.

One mile down and still descending, as your bathysphere’s walls whine and crumple, you have to admit that Devil’s Lake really is bottomless.

You wanted to be a badger, and came along, by the bright shining light of the moon. Now, as you struggle to grasp your meal of worms and pheasant eggs with your claws, and your family anxiously awaits your demise, you realize your mistake.

Twelve hours since you started, the House on the Rock’s Infinity Room is still shrinking, and still stretches before you.

There is a door of death, crowned with trees with red hanging down from them. Tourists come from the endless flatlands to the south to see it, and pay homage.

You hear whispered stories of the folk who dwell in the wooded hills beyond Iron County. These Youpers look human, but with their incomprehensible accent, fondness for double-letters, and knives and wooden steam chambers, are clearly something else.

Deep in the Driftless Area runs a river that never stops turning in on itself. Those who attempt to kayak it never reach the Mississippi, no matter how many coulees they paddle through.

The margarine is as white as death. You dare not consume it. The cows must remain happy.

“Spotted cow!” your roommate says. “Spotted cow!” your professor responds. “Spotted cow!” cry the whooping cranes flying above you. “Spotted cow!” your bank teller exclaims. “Spotted cow!” the police yell, weapons drawn.