#the coroner's gambit

[sylviii]

#tmg #the mountain goats #john darnielle #we shall all be healed #wsabh #the coroner's gambit #transcendental youth #goths #goths 2017 #mountain goats

[tmglineaday]

I hope the stars don't even come out tonight, I hope we both freeze to death

#family happiness #the coroner's gambit #the mountain goats

[yourfavealbumisgender]

The Coroner's Gambit by The Mountain Goats is Transgender!

requested by @kirjavafan

#request #album #the coroner's gambit #trans #transgender #the mountain goats #john darnielle #lo fi

[cryptic-symbols]

John Darnielle is a complicated man and sometimes, I don’t know how, but sometimes I forget just how much he’s been through. I think many people’s perceptions of him, including my own, don’t make enough room for how complex he is. His love for the goth scene, his wholehearted and deeply personal support of queer art.

I was going through the old shit on Spotify and I came across Shadow Song.

If you get there before me, will you save me a seat?

If you get there before me, would you save me a seat?

And if I never get there at all

Would you leave the seat empty?

If you get there before me, will you light us a fire?

If you get there before me, will you light us a fire?

And if I never show, will you watch the embers glow?

You can keep the fire burning.

This is a song for you

In case I never make it through to where you are.

This is a song for you

In case I never make it through to where you are.

I was curious if he’d ever said anything about it, because it really resonated with me. It reminded me a lot of the Passover tradition of leaving a seat and a place at the seder for Elijah. I looked it up on the fandom wiki:

“This song is for a friend of mine with whom I had a short and turbulent friendship, who is presently down the road at a place called Hollywood Forever [Cemetery].” - John Darnielle, 2014-06-17, Mayan Theatre, Los Angeles, CA

John Darnielle has said several times that the person addressed in this song is Rozz Williams, a musician and friend of Darnielle's who died by suicide in 1998.

This is a song dedicated to an LGBTQ+ alt musician who was deeply influential in the goth scene, who regularly performed in drag as a rebellion against the jock presence in the punk scene. His first band, formed in 1978, was named the A-Sexuals: “Why can’t the asexuals be in the gay parade too?” he said. One of his bands was called the Shadow Project.

According to Wikipedia, The Coroner’s Gambit is dedicated to Williams, and several songs are about John Darnielle’s reaction to his death.

John Darnielle has played this song many, many times over the years, but one performance stood out to me.

#alt text #cw suicide #tmg #the mountain goats #the coroner's gambit #john darnielle #jd #cryptic writings #Spotify

[ringneckedpheasant]

"So this is a song about a couple of people in a car, and uh, it's kind of hot in the car, though it's cold outside, and the reason it's hot in the car is the seething temperature of their hatred. And they're sort of like, you know, it's one of those situations where you really -- Let's say you're in this car. You have probably at some point, the odds are pretty good you've been in this car. And, uh, at one point or another you look over at the speedometer and it says 75, you're riding shotgun, and you think, you do this sort of quick calculation. You don't really know, you know, you're not a physicist, much less a criminal investigator, anything like that, you're just a person in a car that you wish you weren't in, but you think, If I pop the door and drop and roll and I tuck my elbows in, between here and the bushes at the shoulder, what's the damage I sustain, and you picture your lifeless, unconscious body rolling down the beautiful hill, and you see yourself as though in a Japanese film and think, 'You know, I might make it; maybe I will look up and I will see the last bit of the car speeding away from me and I will count that as a victory.' This song, this song is about people who have chosen whatever the opposite of victory is.”

#very arthur & dutch song imo #tmg #audio #the coroner's gambit #john darnielle #marc.txt #Spotify

[justalilgal]

I think Family Happiness hits me so hard because it perfectly describes the feeling of growing up between houses where at least one is in a very isolated, rural area and is (uncoincidentally) also abusive

There is nothing around you for miles - or at least if there is, there are no connections you have with anyone - and even within your family, real communication is impossible and actively discouraged

The song builds on a greater theme the MG ouvre of geographic change and distance being both allegory for whatever characters' emotional states (eg. the "going to" series being different ways that characters try (and fail) to escape their lives or past) but also how our geographies shape us and our lives.

#tmg #themountaingoats #the coroner's gambit #the mountain goats #geography

[john-gosh-darnielle]

you slipped free

without me

#“bluejays and cardinals” #the coroner's gambit #the mountain goats #tmg posting #tmg lyrics #tmg fan art #the mountain goats fan art #mountain goats posting #doodles #artists on tumblr #Spotify

[yourbelgianthings]

i'm leaving out all hail west texas on purpose because it would sweep and i'm curious to know what people like otherwise! i'm also including the compilation albums rather than all their individual sources

#message from mirph #polls #tumblr polls #tmg #the mountain goats #zopilote machine #sweden #nothing for juice #full force galesburg #protein source of the future now #ghana #bitter melon farm #the coroner's gambit

[jennyfromthebes]

they should invent a vinyl of the coroner's gambit that I can own and that isn't like $400 to get one secondhand

#every day i listen to older albums and want to physically own them so badly . #im always saying this but if they did like. a limited re-pressing of some of the old albums. theyd sell SO fast #they should do it. for me . please please pl #txt #tmg #the coroner's gambit #transmissions from lyric

[yowie-wowie]

I know you're waiting, I know you've been waiting for a long, long time.

I'm coming home.

#the mountain goats #elijah #the coroner's gambit #Spotify

[haven-anyone-would-yearn-for]

#tmg album bracket #the mountain goats #all hail west texas #the coroner's gambit

[zoneitout]

DAMN that coroner sure can gambit

#the mountain goats #tmg #the coroner's gambit #i have been listening to this album so much this past week #the way jds voice breaks on elijah omg #only bangers on coroners gambit im telling you

[mountaingoatsfirstlineaday]

i think a lot about "bluejays and cardinals". someday i will say what these thoughts are

#not a first line #the mountain goats #tmg #john darnielle #the coroner's gambit #tcg #bluejays and cardinals

[tmglineaday]

If you get there before me, will you save me a seat?

#shadow song #the coroner's gambit #the mountain goats #tmg

[cryptic-symbols]

For the ask game how about.....

There Will Be No Divorce and Satanic Messiah

--@mark-on-you

how about.....yes!

there will be no divorce: this is one of my fav goats songs by far. not on the shortlist but still. definitely one of my favourites so bear with me for a minute while I go INSANE. I recently got to hear it live and woo boy. MAN.

If I ever want to drive myself insane

All I have to do is watch you breathing

I mean the song is called there will be no divorce right. so these people dont exactly have the easiest relationship; they’re on the brink. but something brings them back.

watching someone sleep is something we usually associate with creeps but if you’ve ever loved someone a lot and shared a bed with them you know its also a gesture of love: wanting to perceive someone while they’re blind to you, see the gentle relaxation in their face, enjoy their presence quietly and the vulnerability of sleeping by or with someone.

common wisdom also says that the quirks you love most about someone are the exact things you come to hate. maybe this person breathes a little funny in their sleep, or the constancy of their presence has become a bit annoying. you will watch, you stay and perceive, but it irritates you. you know exactly how to let yourself get wound up by them, and it is simultaneously one of the most vulnerable things you can let them do to you.

after it all, they’re still together, definitively not divorced, because as much as they drive each other insane, there’s something worth staying for. It gets me!!! It gets me!!!!!

And you gathered your hair behind your head

Like G-d was gonna catch you by the ponytail

This is the part of the song that most people seem to know, that most people sang along to live, so for that reason it feels a little special. Something about a whole room of people perceiving the protagonist’s partner in this song that is such a vulnerable moment. I mean, John Darnielle said he wrote this song for his wife!!!

I’m not going to lie: I have no idea what this line means. Maybe she wants to be caught by something powerful, to feel wanted. Maybe there’s the threat of being plucked away to someone or somewhere else that she wants to avoid because she wants to stay. I don’t know.

satanic messiah: oooh, I actually hadn’t listened to this one before even though I knew about it. I am in the camp of This Is A Song About Attending A Death Metal Concert because 1) its relatable and 2) it makes the most sense based on John Darnielle’s background.

We were all made young when he stepped onto the stage

Like an animal escaping from his cage

This is what I imagine to be the experience of an aging alternative whose been in the scene for a while, going to yet another gig: reconnecting with the inner angsty teenager that first found this passion. It is the feeling of letting something loose deep inside you, something that doesn’t get to see the light very much anymore. you are born again like the antichrist.

I am reminded of the internet famous tiger poem by that one six year old. You know the one:

#ask #alt text #tmg #the mountain goats #the coroner's gambit #cryptic writings

[tmgsucc]

“Family Happiness”, from The Coroner’s Gambit

#family happiness #the coroner's gambit #the mountain goats #greg hirsch #ewan roy