The most vivid dream of my life included this song at the end, like the end credits to my own personal movie about a sad story I never lived. I knew a song had played in my mind the night before, but I couldn’t remember what it was. I instinctively decided to play this the following morning, and once I recognized it, wept like I hadn’t wept in a long time.
Just saw them live. It was at Calvin College, which has some Christian background. He had just gone to the keyboard and he said (not exactly, but you get the gist) "whenever I go to a college that has some religious influences, I am always tempted to play some hymnal type music" he then plays and sings several lines from some Catholic song that is used frequently, stopped, and quickly said "this is a song about feeling abandoned by God, it's called black pear tree" and then he played it and oh my gosh it was amazing
Ugh, I'm envious you were there to see it. I'd just started getting into The Mountain Goats around then, but sadly it was right before I moved back home to Hawai'i from Portland. Didn't get to see tMG live until 2019, and again for three nights in a row at the Aladdin in 2022. Flying back to Portland to see tMG makes returning to Portland much more pleasant, as the city has changed so much I barely recognize large parts of it, and it's a depressing feeling... I didn't even realize the hotel I stayed at in 2019 (right next to Crystal Ballroom) was actually the former freaking gay bathhouse until I got home and looked up the history of the hotel. I spent _so much_ time in that area when I lived there (back when I was still into going out to clubs and bars I only went to the gay and goth ones, and that was the area that had 'em). Although it did make sense: the hotel was so dark, labyrinthian, most rooms had shared bathrooms, and there was a pool in the basement... Realizing where I'd been was both interesting and a bit sad (I'm a cis woman, and there was no way I'd be so disrespectful and try to get into the building back when it was for the guys). Of course the building directly across from my window was a We Work on our floor and Whole Foods underneath ಠ_ಠ. I navigate by landmarks more than street signs, so I guess it's no wonder why I was confused. Some of my old stomping grounds are gone forever, but a few still exist. For now. *Anyway* Yeah, I would have loved to be at that performance... and the city I loved has mostly changed into condos and overpriced stores, but at least I can go there and see music I love... And tMG crowds are always full of great people and a lot of other queer folks... at least a part of Portland I love still exists in those rooms.
if you sing deuteronomy 2:10 over this song, not only does it work musically, and not only do some themes in the lyrics match up when sung at the same time (there being nothing in the future and feeling it in your bones), but you also sing "there will be no more after me" as kaki and john sing "i suspect it's going to have to be" and it sounds so much like it was supposed to happen. it's one of those things that can't possibly be intentional but gave me goosebumps when i noticed it all the same
I only know of this song because he’s been playing it in all his recent live shows, and having never heard of it I had to find it. This has to be one of the most beautiful songs in the entire MG catalogue, and it didn’t even make it on to an album.
I dug a hole and filled it up with compost Rested on the cool grass for a minute I saw the future in a dream last night There’s nothing in it I set the sapling in the hole Started gently tamping down the dirt I saw the future in a dream last night Somebody’s gonna get hurt, somebody’s gonna get hurt I hope it’s not me But I suspect it’s going to have to be I dug my heels in for the winter And I waited for the snow But something was stuck up in the clouds Something was stuck up there It couldn’t let go And when its time came I could see it happen Blossoms black and sweet as Texas crude I saw the future flowering like a ruptured vessel Somebody’s gonna get screwed It won’t be me Someday I am going to walk out of here free
Yeah thanks for doing this. It's a big world with a lot of terrible stuff in it but there are so many people making it better in whatever ways they know how, editing Wikipedia or doing social work or putting lyrics up on RU-vid videos of very good songs, even those people who yield the right of way obnoxiously when they shouldn't are just trying to help make the world a nicer place and it says a lot of really positive things about humanity.
(On Black Pear Tree) Speaking of health stuff, there's two things - 1. There's all kinds of things wrong with me that will surely kill me, if not tonight, very soon, and 2. I'm a hypochondriac. I mean, and then I have some real stuff but some of it is stuff that doesn't really have romantic names, y'know, like acid reflux, right? And, uh, so we were in Sweden in the back of a very small tour car, it was just me and Peter and we were getting up to some of the clubs so it was a tiny little car and my driver was like 6'10 (this is not an exaggeration, big fella), and so I'm just scrunched in the back seat there and then I start wondering why my chest hurts, I'm having chest pains, right? Well, can my fellow hypochondriacs testify? When you get a chest pain you know you've reached the holy land of stuff to worry about. Especially if you've spent many years smoking you're gonna go "well, here it is, right? Okay, okay it's time to pay the piper, right here far away from your home, you can do that now", and I joke about it here y'know but it's real it's like, I mean to make a really morbid comparison (and this dates me) but uh, the first time I got my AIDS test it was like in the first generation of people to go get the AIDS test and pretty much 99% of us who went to get it were certain that we were gonna leave there with our death sentences. And I remember I had virgin friends who went to their AIDS tests, and told me something had gone wrong in the lunch line. Anyway, so I'm in Sweden and I went to the ER and I'm sitting there waiting to talk to the doctor - well, waiting for the doctor to tell me that I'd better get right with God and my friends and family because I only have seven days or something like that, y'know, and I wrote down some lyrics - and then I put them away, y'know because when I got finished he told me I had Lutheran syndrome, he said: "Are you Lutheran?" and I said "No, I'm Catholic"/- "It's the same thing - you think you have to pay for the things you did before". And I would take issue, now that I'm a doctor, that it's I know I have to pay for the things I did. So yeah, I mean, the better part of a year passed and I had forgotten about most of it, I'm flipping through a notebook, looking for something to do and I ran across the lyrics I had written when in my gut I was pretty certain, thinking I was gonna have to go home and tell my wife I'm sorry I smoked for so long, better go find somebody to keep cause I'm gonna go to rot in a grave and so those were the lyrics I found in the music I saved it for. - John Darnielle, 2009-03-25, Somerville Theatre, Somerville MA.
TLDR: serious heartburn/acid reflux is awful. I was sent to the ER over heartburn by an overly cautious doctor, years later I was sent to the ER for a serious heart issue I didn't even notice, and I recently injured myself while sleeping to the point of needing physical therapy. I don't recommend any of these experiences. That experience must have been horrifying... and in a foreign country, too 😬. I've had heartburn/acid reflux so severe that I immediately had to leave a restaurant after puking in the bathroom. I stumbled to the car and sat with the door open, covered in sweat, barely able to think because the pain was so intense, while waiting for my partner to get antacids. If I hadn't known there was a specific liquor in my drink that set it off (didn't know when I ordered it and only found out when my partner asked) we would have gone straight to the hospital. I happened to have a doctor's appointment the next day and when I told her about the heartburn, she sent me to the hospital to make sure it wasn't actually heart related ಠ_ಠ. Thankfully I was right, but finding out the symptoms were enough to worry my doctor... I know it's never a bad idea to make sure, but it's not fun to already be an anxious person with health issues and get sent to the ER by your doctor when you've managed to talk yourself down to "it was just heartburn" ¯\_ಠ_ಠ_/¯. Being sent to the ER years later when a doctor thought my heart "sounded strange" and did an EKG only to find out I was about to go into cardiac arrhythmia (a rare side effect of my medications) was even more frightening. The only symptom I had was fatigue. Thankfully the ER docs were great, and after treatment, some observation, and a medication reduction I was out of the woods, but walking in there... I was shaking with fear, literally. I'm incredibly lucky the ER was in the same building and the doctor's assistant walked me there and got me admitted immediately, because with the way my mind was racing I don't know if I'd have been able to make it there myself. Knowing my luck, I'm sure it'll happen again. Not heart related, but just to support my statement about health related luck (and to vent into the void of an old YT comment section): a couple months ago I fell asleep sitting up with my legs crossed. Something I'd done MANY times before, except this time when I woke up and my leg was asleep... the feeling didn't come back. To the ER _again_ where I learned I'd damaged the peroneal nerve in my left leg. I've been in physical therapy, and in fact have an appointment later today. About a week ago I was able to finally walk without needing a cane (at first it was crutches). I've regained a lot of feeling and movement, and it'll be a couple more months before I'm fully healed (which really isn't too bad, time-wise). Still, finding out I seriously injured myself during a two hour nap, initially being told it would take months to heal, AND that total healing couldn't be guaranteed... sure as hell hasn't helped all my previous effort put into not being a total hypochondriac, AND now I panic a little every time I feel that "pins and needles" sensation until it totally disappears. It really makes life exciting (/s).
"I saw the future in a dream last night... there's nothing in it..." I already liked this song, but finding out the story behind it just made that line hit harder. It already sounded bleak, but damn...
I think it's supposed to sound like helicopters circling overhead. I absolutely love the eerie, lonely, ominous sound effects John puts into his songs. I think they're one of his signatures.
