#lord if you won't keep me safe and warm then send down the storm

[azfellandco]

OOPS! All Goats!: azfellandco's Good Omens Mountain Goats Playlist (spotify link here)

This is a playlist that's all Mountain Goats songs that remind me of Good Omens, with explanations.

Rain In Soho (x): nothing sharper than a serpent's tooth / nothing harder than the gospel truth / though you repent and don sackcloth and try to make nice / you can't cross the same river twice

Soho, serpent's tooth, can't cross the same river... this song to me conjures up Crowley driving the Bentley through London at night.

Rat Queen (x): great warm throb of the undercity / at one with the purpose / i am a faceless nameless acolyte / here tonight at your service

Crowley & Crowley's Rat Army... Crowley is the rat queen. this song choice is so unserious but I love the use of the word "acolyte" in this song

Heretic Pride (x): well they come and pull me from my house / and they drag my body through the streets... transfiguration's gonna come for me at last / and i will burn hotter than the sun / i waited so long and now i taste jasmine on my tongue

I've been meaning to make a video or a gifset or something for Agnes Nutter using this song literally since before s1 came out. have i done it yet? no.

Heel Turn 2 (x): get stomped like a snake / lie down in the dirt / cling to my convictions / even when i get hurt... stay good under pressure / for years and years and years and years

Crowley song.

Stench of the Unburied (x): incoherent but functional / speeding like a dead comet... but when the blue lights flash / i know we're going to crash

A Crowley driving in the Bentley song.

Cry For Judas (x): some people crash two or three times / and then learn from their mistakes / but we are the ones who don't slow down at all / and there's nobody there to catch us when we fall

Also a Crowley driving in the Bentley song, with bonus biblical era trauma.

Insurance Fraud #2 (x): big plans, big plans, let me tell you something sister: you will never get away with it

This is on here because I will never get over how funny I find it that book!Aziraphale keeps getting investigated for possible tax fraud.

Mark On You (x): when this is over / when we leave it all behind us / deep in the moonless night / when the rescue team finds us / it's gonna get so dark for you / i'm gonna leave a mark on you

Crowley to Aziraphale.

Riches and Wonders (x): we live high, our loves gorges / on the alcohol we feed it / and it grows all fat and friendly / we have surplus if we need it

This is the Mountain Goats Good Omens song to me. Aziraphale and Crowley in the bookshop, their love for each other, and clinging to each other through the ages.

Mobile (x): and the plant grew but it withered / it shriveled up and turned brown / i'm on a balcony... waiting for the wind to throw me down / lord if you won't keep me safe and warm / then send down the storm, send down the storm

Loss of faith. Aziraphale song.

Elijah (x): set the table, those three extra places / one for me, one for your doubts, one for God

Aziraphale song.

Grendel's Mother (x): i look down on the world from the top of this lonesome hill / and you can run, run some more... but i will carry you home in my teeth

Aziraphale to Crowley.

Ending the Alphabet (x): we've got the brightest skylight / like a vision of heaven in the evening sky... and the late sunlight makes them all look like angels / what is there left in a city like this / when everyone you know is gone?

London, the bookshop, and the impossibility of permanence when you're a pair of immortals trying to make a home for each other.

Deuteronomy 2:10 (x): i have no fear of anyone, i'm dumb and wild and free / i am a flightless bird and they'll be no more after me

About extinct animals, titled after a biblical passage about an extinct race of people. This song has always resonated with that same impossibility of permanence and the contradiction between that and Aziraphale and Crowley's love for the world and being in it.

Never Quite Free (x): it's okay to find the faith to saunter forward / with no fear of shadows spreading where you stand

Saunter hehehe. But no this is about Crowley's trauma.

New Britain (x): i try to tell you secrets 'til my face turns blue / i am not getting through to you

Aziraphale and Crowley can't communicate openly.

So Desperate (x): we were parked in your car / in our neutral meeting place... i had things i'd been meaning to say

This goes with that passage in the book where, during the years they were observing Warlock, Aziraphale and Crowley met "on the tops of buses, in art galleries, and at concerts" to me. Them meeting covertly but this time they're parked in the Bentley somewhere and one of them just starts to cry. "Desperate" is an apt description of their reaching for each other after so many years of not being able to, to me.

In the Craters on the Moon (x): when the room fills with smoke / lie down on the floor / in the declining years / of the long war

The 6000 year long war, in fact. Crowley in the burning bookshop.

Have To Explode (x): the stage is set / someone's gonna do something someone else will regret / i speak in smoke signals and you answer in code / the fuse will have to run out sometime / something here will eventually have to explode, have to explode

Aziraphale and Crowley being unable to communicate openly, speaking in code, the anticipation of the apocalypse, and always, the knowledge that the coming end is inevitable. A song for those low moments when they feel it's pointless.

Training Montage (x): i'm doing this for revenge / i am doing this to try and stay true / i'm doing this for the ones they left to twist in the wind / i'm doing this for you

"twist in the wind" echoing back to "send down the storm" in the song Moblie. Aziraphale and Crowley wanting to save each other and save their shared world and the way that makes them brave.

Love, Love, Love (x): snakes in the grass beneath our feet / rain in the clouds above / some moments last forever / but some flare out with love, love, love

The other ultimate Mountain Goats Good Omens song. This is that first rain in Eden.

#music #good omens #the mountain goats

[olreid]

as someone who just finished moby dick & also is rediscovering their love for the mountain goats, I was wondering what your top moby dick tmg songs are. you are the best person i can think of to answer this :)

wow it is truly an honor and a privilege... im limiting this to my personal favorite reading of moby dick which is of course that it is a memory play ishmael puts on ad nauseum because he lives inside the shipwreck and doesn't know how to get out; ahab/whale dynamics would be a whole other project and this already got away from me as it is lol. so, some songs that are about compulsively reliving the day your life ended:

woke up new — i began to talk to myself almost immediately

how to embrace a swamp creature — got out of bed, could not remember my own name / condemned to walk the soil amongst all creatures wild and tame

the slow parts on death metal albums — stock up on gauze in case of accidents / try to keep my story straight

lab rat blues — living water to quench my thirst 

going to mexico — i imagined your touch / it was almost too much

keeping house — and when you set the table, set it for two / the ghost on your doorstep has to eat, same as you

maize stalk drinking blood — this is an empty country, and i am the king

historiography — you were warm and that's all i remember

moon over goldsboro — spend all night in the company of ghosts, always wake up alone

almost every door — the moment’s never going to come / when anyone can say that the coast is clear

mobile  — lord if you won't keep me safe and warm / then send down the storm, send down the storm

southwestern territory — i try to remember what life was like long ago / but it’s gone, you know

bleed out — i’m gonna make a gigantic mess / but it meant something important i guess

divided sky lane — i will someday learn how to let you go

i could literally keep doing this for hours. but what does everyone else think

#imagine being insane . anyway #asks #calvinandhobbes #tmg #moby dick #the telling gets old

[electric-rabbits]

Woke up with Mobile, by the Mountain Goats, stuck in my head. It's certainly something when your first half coherent thought of the day is "Lord, if you won't keep me safe and warm, then send down the storm. Send down the storm."

#sometimes life just gets you and when you least expect it youre on a balcony in Mobile Alabama waiting for the wind to throw you down #tmg

[studyinglogic]

Song cluster: (mostly) the Mountain Goats

A happy day!

The Wonder Years, Passing Through A Screen Door: "I was born to run away from anything good" reminds me of "I seem to spend my whole life running from people who can be the death of you and me" from Noel Gallagher's The Death of You and Me.

The Mountain Goats, Cry for Judas: A brass section at the start goes well. "We are the ones who don't slow down at all" reminds me of "We are the ones, the ones you left behind" from MKTO's Thank You.

The Mountain Goats, No Children: Reminiscent of Oasis's Married with Children.

The Mountain Goats, Mobile: "Lord, if you won't keep me safe and warm, then send down the storm" reminds me of the line from Oasis's Falling Down, "I tried to talk with God to no avail; calling him in and out of nowhere, I said 'If you won't save me, please don't waste my time.'"

The Mountain Goats, Dilaudid: The heavy string backing reminds me of Akeboshi's The Audience.

The Mountain Goats, This Year.

The Smiths, Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now.

The Mountain Goats, Lizard Suit: "Let my habits form the shapes of days." John Darnielle is a gifted lyricist. If I wrote down my favourite lines from each song, this post would be many times longer.

(When I hear songs, I can't help but connect them with other songs I've heard, other things I'm thinking of, the people who recommended them to me. It's how I remember the songs; it's how I remember anything. Thus do clusters form.)

#music #song cluster #The Mountain Goats

[jewfrogs]

Can you do Dark In Here and/or Songs for Pierre Chuvin and/or Tallahasse?

oh boy i sure can!

dark in here

parisian enclave

collect the brine from the rain gutters, let the devil take the rest

the destruction of the kola superdeep borehole tower

retain a sense of grace when it's time to cut the cord / crack through the crust, fall to your knees, and praise the lord

mobile

lord, if you won't / keep me safe and warm / then send down the storm

dark in here

you who stood so proud once / i can taste your fear / you blazed like torches / it's dark in here

lizard suit

wait for my cue / search for one clue / i have to trust that my compass stays true

when a powerful animal comes

sleep in short shifts and then rise up to our feet / life is hard and life is short and life is sweet

to the headless horseman

g-d keep the bounty hunter who shows mercy to his prey

the new hydra collection

dream of the day when the calm waters break / and something rises from the lake

the slow parts on death metal albums

mark my time on the wall / answer the call / and listen to the slow parts

before i got there

and the tapestry above / torn down, trampled, then re-hung / now illegible forever / an oracle with no tongue

arguing with the ghost of peter laughner about his coney island baby review

systems closing down on several fronts / you will always have been here once

let me bathe in demonic light

someday the old flesh will give way to the new / find a functioning mirror inside and slip right through

[other two under the cut]

songs for pierre chuvin

aulon raid

your reputation precedes you / something must be done / here in the heat of the onslaught / i am the one

until olympius returns

is it not a stately beacon / for the whole world to see? / we will be right here / on the day it finally burns

last gasp at calama

but carthage may rise again one day / with the measure that you used, so shall it be measured to you / so you say, and it's true

for the snakes

all your abandoned things / once fine vestments, statues with wings / they have their uses, every one / let me slither across them in the sun

the wooded hills along the black sea

serve who we serve / enshrouded in moonlight / bucking the curve

january 31, 438

when the hunger turns in on itself / it begins to devour its host / who do you turn to for help? / who do you love the most?

hopeful assassins of zeno

be nice to the guys who wear necklaces with crosses / they will stab you in the back / you gotta turn the other cheek / you gotta learn to love jesus, so to speak

their gods do not have surgeons

you who come demanding proof / let your god rebuild this roof

going to lebanon 2

pick up the faint faint scent / of the faith of our fathers / their names were known once to me / i hear them sometimes on the song of the sea

exegetic chains

headed somewhere better / if i have to crawl there on all fours

tallahassee

tallahassee

moon stuttering in the sky like film stuck in a projector

southwood plantation road

i got you / you got whatever's left of me to get / our conversations are like minefields / no one's found a safe way through one yet

game shows touch our lives

people say friends don't destroy one another / what do they know about friends?

the house that dripped blood

still waters go stagnant / bodies bloat / and the cellar door / is an open throat

idylls of the king

our shared paths / unraveling behind us like ribbons

no children

i am drowning / there is no sign of land / you are coming down with me / hand in unlovable hand

see america right

if we never make it back to california / i want you to know i love you / but my love is like a dark cloud full of rain / always right there up above you

peacocks

the sky will fall / we will rise

international small arms traffic blues

there is a shortage in the blood supply / but there is no shortage of blood

have to explode

name one thing about us two anyone could love

old college try

i will walk down to the end with you / if you will come all the way down with me

oceanographer's choice

look at that, would you look at that? / the way the ceiling starts to swerve / what will i do when i don't have you? / when i finally get what i deserve?

alpha rat's nest

sing for the damage we've done / and the worse things that we'll do / open your mouth up and sing for me now / and i will sing for you

#ask #anonymous #tmg

[jinruihokankeikaku]

When JD said "Lord, if you won't keep me safe and warm / Then send down the storm, send down the storm." That was so real like i am always saying that hehe

[astrangerlately]

#mobile #the mountain goats #dark in here #turner #lord if you won't keep me safe and warm then send down the storm #ocean #multi #mine #painting #i #self #religious imagery #tag later #queue #pfav #honestly my fave tmg song after autoclave #100 #yellow #grey #pf #about

[the-songs-of-my-life]

The Mountain Goats - Mobile

Jonah went down to the docks to flee from the wrath of the lord. But the mark on his forehead was visible to everybody on board.

They threw him down into the water, but he did not drown. I'm on a balcony in Mobile, Alabama, waiting for the wind to throw me down.

Now, the lord told the great fish, "be free of your burden." And Jonah emerged from his darkness, like a dancer crashing through the curtain.

And the plant grew, but it withered, and it shriveled up and turned brown. I'm on a balcony in Mobile, Alabama, waiting for the wind to throw me down.

Lord, if you won't keep me safe and warm, then send down the storm. Send down the storm.

Jonah was sure he heard voices, maybe just one voice, but real clear. And where he went, the voice followed, sometimes hardly loud enough to hear.

"Shall I not spare the wise with the wicked? Hold back my wrath from this town?" I'm on a balcony in Mobile, Alabama, waiting for the wind to throw me down.

May I address the foreman of the jury? Why do you hold back your fury? Don't hold back your fury.

#the mountain goats #dark in here #mobile #lyrics

[jammglass]

Dark in Here is giving me a lot of Life of the World to Come vibes, y’all and I am so goddamn ready. 

#tmg #the mountain goats #dark in here

[electric-rabbits]

TMG ask! Now some of my favourites that come to mind: Lakeside View Apartment Suite Game Shows Touch Our Lives Guys on Every Corner Mobile Heretic Pride (back atchu!)

hehehe thank you sm for the ask I'll be sooo annoying about it!!! Let's goooo Lakeside View Apartments Suite- This is one of those songs I listened to so many fucking times I ended up squeezing all of the endorphins out of it. But the line that breaks me is

And just before I leave I throw up in the sink One whole life recorded In disappearing ink

Just. I've never struggled with addiction myself, but I've done some work with damage reduction, and whenever JD writes about addiction he does such a great job at it- never moralizing, never failing to recognize the value on all the things we do to survive, but also noting the suffering that it may cause. The loss of agency and of history that this line shows, this alienation from your own existence... Yeah.

Game Shows Touch Our Lives- This ENTIRE SONG. The WHOLE THING. But that's not the game so

Thunderclouds forming, cream white moon, Everything's gonna be ok soon Maybe tomorrow, Maybe the next day

This is the tragedy of Tallahasse. The listeners know how twisted this is, this idea that (once again) the Alpha Couple can only be at peace when they are fully alienated from themselves and from each other; but they have hope. For a second there they think maybe their love is still there, and maybe they were happy someday, and maybe they can be happy again. But the clouds are forming, and we see the storm coming.

Guys on Every Corner- Fun fact! Bleed Out was the first TMG album launch I've followed- I've been listening to them since the days of In League with Dragons, but I only started following their socials and stuff during the pandemic, so here we are

They look like nothing They look like your neighbors You won't remember their faces later

It's a fucking panopticon! He's got guys on every corner!!! It doesn't matter if that guy really is one of his guys, because he could be. Any guy could be. You'll never be safe.

Mobile- Listen. Listen. Eduardo Galeano once referred to the christian god as "The god of the christians, the god from my childhood" and that's the relationship I have with catholicism. I'm an atheist and I've been for years, but JD really does write directly to that childhood and brings the material and the mundane into it, and it gets me good every time.

Lord, if you won't keep me safe and warm Then send down the storm Send down the storm

GAH! The passive suicidal ideation, the way this asks god "If I was not enough to be chosen, to be good, then can you at least punish me properly. At least let me face down your wrath. Your punishment is better than your indifference. I'm on a balcony in Mobile, Alabama, waiting for my god to finally kill me, but he is too forgiving to do so, and too vengeful to love me as I am.

Herectic Pride- THIS IS A SONG ABOUT QUEER JOY AND I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR OTHERWISE

And I start laughing like a child And I mark their faces, one by one Transfiguration's gonna come for me at last And I will burn hotter than the sun

In christianism, we get told again and again that we must forgive those who do us harm. This was one of the hardest things to unlearn in my life after leaving religion. This idea of being sacrificed for being seen as profane, as dangerous, as demonic, and then taking that not as martyrdom but as a chance to strike back??? Showing that those things they condemned in you are your strength?? They may fucking break my bones but I will make them pay. I will make them pay.

#this was SO FUN!!!!!!!! God I love saying way too much about songs #tmg