This Year 365 songs: March 4th and 5th
Mar. 5th, 2026 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
js_thrill It would have been slightly more fitting if I had slacked off for one more day, as March 4th, 5th, and 6th are sort of related inclusions in the book (I've only heard the song for March 5th, previously). Each annotation is labeled "Firearms Suite, Song Number n". (I've actually just glanced ahead and there is another one coming up, so I feel less bad about tackling two of them today and the others later).
The song for March 4th was: That Hippolytine Feeling.
Darnielle obviously has some feelings about his penchant for putting guns in songs when he was younger. One doesn't need to read this book to know that, though. He stopped performing the song live for a long stretch, and has spoken about his feelings on this a fair number of times.
The thing about Going to Georgia (sorry Hippolytine Feeling, we're not going to focus on you much in this post), is that it is a really good song, despite the issues with the song's narrative and it's protagonist. I think I remember people having similar feelings about the film Hero, or more recently, film RRR, where one has ideological objections to the work, simultaneous with a recognition of its level of aesthetic quality.
What makes this somewhat surprising for this song in particular is that lots of Mountain Goats songs have morally concerning narrative elements. So the real question is: why is this song one that Darnielle feels so strongly about? It can't *just* be that it became hugely popular with the fans, as No Children fits that bill. I think Darnielle feels like this song (unlike the songs that focus on the alpha couple), romanticize guns and related violent impulses in a way that is different from how, say, toxic behaviors are depicted and explored in the alpha couple songs, but not romanticized (though, when we do get to No Children, check out the stories about people asking him to play that at their wedding; some folks are romanticizing it nonetheless).
I think the popularity of the song compounded with Darnielle's ambivalence about how it romanticizes the protagonist, combined to make him hate the song (though his attitude seems to have warmed up a bit, as he has played it at a few recent concerts without demanding anyone in the audience pay him $60 to do so).
Darnielle renders the lyrics as prose (most lyrics in the book have line breaks where you would expect, though he also did this for Song for Dana Plato), and I don't know what to make of that decision:
Anyway, Darnielle doesn't say much to address the above issues and ambivalences head on in these annotations. He talks a bit about the process of recording the song and then ends with an observation that the song's "perennial status as one of the most requested songs in the Mountain Goats catalog supports [his] longstanding claim that the people, while not actively demanding blood, would still like the occasional assurance that blood, should they need it, is certainly on the menu". I think this comment deepens my confusion, rather than helping enlighten me, though, as the song does not seem to express bloodthirst to me, even if it takes unfortunate tropes/dangerous conceptions of love and romanticizes them (that hippolytine feeling seems a bit more in line with this commentary, but as far as I can tell it's a song that was never officially recorded/released, so it doesn't have the same longevity, fanbase, or, I imagine, emotional weight around expectations to perform it, as Going to Georgia does.
The song for March 4th was: That Hippolytine Feeling.
Darnielle obviously has some feelings about his penchant for putting guns in songs when he was younger. One doesn't need to read this book to know that, though. He stopped performing the song live for a long stretch, and has spoken about his feelings on this a fair number of times.
The thing about Going to Georgia (sorry Hippolytine Feeling, we're not going to focus on you much in this post), is that it is a really good song, despite the issues with the song's narrative and it's protagonist. I think I remember people having similar feelings about the film Hero, or more recently, film RRR, where one has ideological objections to the work, simultaneous with a recognition of its level of aesthetic quality.
What makes this somewhat surprising for this song in particular is that lots of Mountain Goats songs have morally concerning narrative elements. So the real question is: why is this song one that Darnielle feels so strongly about? It can't *just* be that it became hugely popular with the fans, as No Children fits that bill. I think Darnielle feels like this song (unlike the songs that focus on the alpha couple), romanticize guns and related violent impulses in a way that is different from how, say, toxic behaviors are depicted and explored in the alpha couple songs, but not romanticized (though, when we do get to No Children, check out the stories about people asking him to play that at their wedding; some folks are romanticizing it nonetheless).
I think the popularity of the song compounded with Darnielle's ambivalence about how it romanticizes the protagonist, combined to make him hate the song (though his attitude seems to have warmed up a bit, as he has played it at a few recent concerts without demanding anyone in the audience pay him $60 to do so).
Darnielle renders the lyrics as prose (most lyrics in the book have line breaks where you would expect, though he also did this for Song for Dana Plato), and I don't know what to make of that decision:
The most remarkable thing about coming home to you is the feeling of being in motion again; it's the most extraordinary thing in the world. I have two big hands, and a heart pumping blood, and a 1967 Colt .45 with a busted safety catch. The world shines as I cross the Macon county line going to Georgia.
The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway is that it's you, and that you're standing in the doorway; and you smile when you ease the gun from my hand, and I'm frozen with joy right where I stand. The world throws its light underneath your hair, forty miles from Atlanta. This is nowhere. Going to Georgia.
