Loose Ends By The Score
Someone, about a month ago, asked me why I liked The Mountain Goats so much. I stumbled around an answer about songwriting and imagery, but I didn't know why.
In an unrelated incident, someone recently left a comment that said I need to get over myself.
And both these events have been like little pebbles in my shoe, irritating me, wanting to have a conversation.
*
Because why do we love what we love? Get this. Sweetney twittered a song by The Mountain Goats in September of 2008. I shrugged my shoulders, clicked the link, and have listened to nothing else for 14 months. I don't know why.
There's this. Watch the right arm and hand, the whole way through. What the hell is up with his right hand?
And that sound he makes at 3:36. What the fuck is that? We're getting closer.
*
Lorca wrote about the duende. Black sounds. They are "the mystery, the roots that probe through the mire that we all know of, and do not understand, but furnishes us with whatever is sustaining in art." Further, "the duende draws blood, and in the healing of the wound that never quite closes, all that is unprecedented and invented in a man's work has its origin." I only know the bare outlines of John Darnielle's abusive childhood and history of addiction. But when I hear him, it sounds like I might be hearing a wound that doesn't quite close. I don't understand. I doubt even he understands. But he sounds like a man who can't get over himself.
*
I've been trading emails with my Mom about what's wrong with me, a subject with no end. I've tried to reassure her that I don't trace the source of what's wrong with me to the events of my childhood, at least not to her effectiveness as a mother. Rather, it was Chris Delaney being killed when I was 14. It was the photograph of his tennis shoe lying on a snowbank in the newspaper. It was the egg roll at the House of Chan. This kid Aaron looking at the front page. And a Coke. Then he says "The car. It knocked him right out of his shoes." He thinks about it for a second. I remember that egg roll. Then his face goes all crazy like a sponge being wrung.
It was that. That's what's wrong with me. And not in a way that I roam around from day to day in the clutches of manifest grieving. But it was that right there. That's the maze I'm lost in. I will never get over myself.
*
When I was 6, in Houston and visiting my Dad for the first time, for the first time I could remember, I saw a girl on crutches in a shoe store and fell in love with her. I bet she was 14 or 15. The vision of her hit me with the force of something sacred tearing through the fabric of the profane. A Goddess maybe, smiling at me through the puppet of this sweet girl on crutches. I don't have any memories that shore up with that girl from Houston. If she hobbled by today, I'd forget my whole life and follow her anywhere.
Did you ever just recognize somebody?
*
I'm going to see The Mountain Goats tomorrow night in LA. Still not sure why I like them so much. Just have a bunch of loose ends. But I think it has something to do with the way we recognize wounds, live inside them, and never get over them. Or not. Maybe it's all just a version of myself I can't get over. Who knows? Let the wound heal on, and never let it close.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Reader Comments (34)
I hope you don't get over yourself. You'd be very boring.
I'm unbelievably pleased that you're going to that show. It will be magical, for lack of a better word.
Oh god, dude. You're my brother. I love you. xo
"The vision of her hit me with the force of something sacred tearing through the fabric of the profane." Shit, man, that's fucking brilliant. I've had that happen to me a time or two, and it always left me reeling.
The Mountain Goats, eh? I think a trip to the music store might be in order . . .
We like what we like because it speaks to us in some way, whether it intends to or not.
And yes! I've recognized someone. It was in a grocery store over in NC. I was there, at the beach, on vacation. I walked into the store and bam! There he was. I have no other words, except it was just like you said.
Jesus, you make my heart explode.
I hope the show is perfect for you.
Moments like that make me believe in reincarnation. Or not really, but that on some cellular level that we all know each other.
This was lovely to read.
I hope you never get over yourself either. Obviously I haven't gotten over you, having followed you here from TWIYV, because your writing sometimes takes my breath away and that is a rare thing indeed.
Did you ever just recognize somebody?.
Yes. Oh, yes.
My ex's brother lost his best friend at 11 to a car accident. When their grandmother died we went to the cemetary and he pointed to the marker which was very near where his grandmother was being buried. He told me how the day after he died the newspaper ran a front-page story complete with a picture of the crumpled bike and a single sneaker in the middle of the street. And he said he hadn't been able to get that picture out of his mind for 20 years.
I thought of my brother's shoes kept in perfect place under his bed after his death, never to be moved until my parents left their home for retirement. And I thought the picture memory would somehow be worse, at least to me. I can't remember what color my brother's shoes were even though I saw them in real life every day for years.
Yes.
Loved this post -- have a great time at The Mountain Goats. I think they're playing right around the corner from my house.
I just downloaded them with a bunch of other bands today/last few days. Weird.
Don't let those people make you forget, that if you want to fly, there's plenty here who'd lend you their wings (or at least some feathers).
It wouldn't make any sense to be here at all if we didn't recognize somebody.
Enjoy your show. :-)
and most else today will bore me I am sure. xo
wow. i agree with those above - please, never ever get over yourself.
relate is not word enough and my vocabulary is biting lately. i will never erase the memory and resulting dreams i experienced as a young kid. at 5 my fathers police partner was shot and killed in front of him. my little friends father gone. my father broken. the memory of opening the door and seeing my dad in bed, sad and mourning and my mom taking me out is forever there. the dreams i never shared of losing my own father in the line of duty never left. woven into my fabric, im afraid. when he had an affair and left us for her 3 years ago, 10 days after my wedding, it somehow just felt like the other shoe had dropped. weird. i trace back much of how i feel about him today to that experience when i was 5. always anticipating him leaving. tadaaa...
cut from the same cloth, maybe we are, all of us, here.
thanks for this. and sorry, seems its my official outlet as of late.
I remember Chris. Very sad. I hope you find a way to make peace with it some day. Keep on keepin' on.
Beautiful, sad and so, so true.
Sometimes you just blow me the fuck away. I'm making dinner, snapping green beans, and all I can think about is this post and how I should really tell you how much I appreciate you and your brain and your heart. I just wish I had the balls and the talent to put my soul out there into the universe. Also, you maybe should find someone near by to hug. It can't hurt.
oh no. i forgot to say enjoy the show. seeing a fave band live, how awesome is that?! music is also my friend, so enjoy the night with yours. youre the 2nd person to talk about the mountain goats, so im off to see what they are all about. and recognizing people. i so get that too. this whole post was magic.
thanks!!
you are probably just now getting ready to hear the axe drop at the show. i hope this is a new memory to add to your bank of happiness.
Did you ever just recognize somebody?
Please don't take offense when I say fuck you and when I say cut it out, jerkoff and when I wave you away like I don't understand at all what it is you are talking about, because I lie just as good as the next guy when you've gotten too close to 'that place'.
I've like the Mountain Goats for ages ... and I've never wondered WHY. Isn't that part of the beauty of music? It just connects with us sometimes and I don't think there has to be a reason. We all have wounds we never get past. At least, I think we all do? Maybe other people heal and move on unscathed? I don't think so ...
Why do we love what we love? Why do we love who we love?
Maybe because we recognize them?
Why did this post affect me so much?
Sigh ....
"...I've been trading emails with my Mom about what's wrong with me, a subject with no end..."
They're just like that, aren't they.
* ; )
You introduced me to the Mountain Goats and I've been ruined since. My wife, sons and I all sing "No Children" at the top of our lungs in the car on our way to the wherever. It makes guests anxious. There are certain dysfunctionalities that just ring true to common sufferers. My wife and children screaming "I hope you die" while veins protrued from their foreheads on the way to get icecream makes me giggle. Thank you.
Thank you for articulating what I cannot. A moment. It seems like nothing, but it is everything. Everything can be traced back to it by one path or another. You can't get rid of it - it happened. You can only try and make some sense of it as you navigate through it.
Make sure you write about it afterward! Will Jackson be invited like at Green Day?
Heck, Yes. And while I can't get over myself, every once in a while, I can get under my Self and that's good enough for this One.
Please give the post a chance... I reviewed the Mountain Goats last month and I've been following BHJ for awhile... since the WIMV days anyway.
Yep, it talks about the Bible. I would love for any of you to read it all the way through and let me know what you think.
TLO
Here is the post... I don't comment often on other people's blogs so maybe I messed that up?
wow.
My mom died when I was 14. Life went on. When I was 18, my friend Joe made a left turn into a bus on his way to pick me up. And all hell broke loose.
I've never understood the demand to explain oneself and have that explanation rejected out of hand. Why does it matter to anyone why you like a particular type of music, literature or food? People who can't control their own lives break their heads against walls trying to control others.
If you mean what you think you mean, I am now taking a perverse pride in the fact that whenever I thought I just recognized someone, I was wrong.
Also, I blame my mom. But not for everything. There's my dad too.
this reminds me to be grateful for reading.
mean it.