Songs for Peter Hughes ^{1 2 3}

Talking about the record in the Bitter Melon Farm liner notes, John writes:

Actually, it was supposed to have been called Sons for Peter Hughes, and was a controversial experiment in the conversion of sound into matter. I said some incantations and boiled a bunch of aromatics in vinegar, and the book said that the result should have been four genetically perfect replicas of my friend Peter. He and I would then employ them as gardeners, housekeepers, and so forth, freeing us up for the very important work that lay ahead of us — at the time we were involved in delicate contract negotiations with the Vatican which were supposed to have resulted in an official Papal bull proclaiming Exit House the official Inland Empire Band of the Holy See until the final judgment, at which point the torch was to have been passed on to either the Bux or the Crunch Sisters, I can't remember which. Long story short: technical mixup ends with the spells on digital audio tape rather than in the bowels of the nether regions; postal mixup results in said tape winding up in Bremen, where Gregor Kessler, chancellor pro tem of Germany and a keen businessman, sends the tape to the Czech Republic, where it was pressed in a limited edition of 600, the first hundred or so on red vinyl. The fade-out at the end of "No, I Can't" was the idea of the nameless Czech engineer who, hearing the way we'd run out of tape while recording the song, couldn't deal with it and so muscled his way anonymously into history. ↩

Peter Hughes is presently the bassist and occasional a singer in the Mountain Goats as well as a member of DiskothiQ. At the time of this EP, Hughes sang on Nine Black Poppies and was playing with Nothing Painted Blue, another Inland Empire band whose songs the Mountain Goats have covered. ↩

The album Songs for Peter Hughes is part of the Song for ... series. ↩

These phrases mean "Side One" and "Side Two" in German. ↩ ↩²

Goar was a German music magazine operating in the late 1980s through 1990s which released a 7" vinyl EP with many issues. The Mountain Goats released two songs on Goar #11 also in 1995, Creature Song and Pure Sound, sharing space with Refrigerator. Other than the release date, however, I'm not sure of a connection between the two EPs. ↩

Referring to Dana Plato's arrest for robbing a video story in Las Vegas; see annotation for more information. ↩

Short Song About the 10 Freeway is part of the Song for ... series and the informal series of Biblical references. ↩

Interstate 10 is a major American freeway, spanning the entire country from Santa Monica, California, to Jacksonville, Florida. Germane to John's life, it passes through Claremont in Southern California, where he attended college and spent a number of pivotal years of his life. ↩

The Devil is in the details is an old idiom of uncertain origin, dating back to the early 19th century, if not earlier. ↩

"I wrote a song about [Dana Plato] when she was — before she died a long, long time ago when she was just robbing Vegas drug stores, and — I know, because it was funny, it was like former child star does what former child stars do and rob stuff — and then she died in a trailer in Oklahoma and it was tragic and twenty years later her son followed her and this is called Tyler Lambert's Grave." — Soho Restaurant, Santa Barbara, June 24, 2011. See also his interview about Tyler Lambert's Grave, Williams, Joe (2011). Tell Me About That Song: John Darnielle, Frontman of the Mountain Goats. Seattle Weekly.

"I grew up in the generation of junkies who sort of had this weird ability to fixate on <static> cultural figure all at once... You sort of try to sometimes pick yours, your celebrity who's gonna burn out. I was successful, and Dana Plato died, and I was sad." — Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, November 22, 2009

"It is a song about a person who got lost, and, I think — I'm pretty sure when I wrote it is was before she got completely lost and died." — 9:30 Club, Washington, DC, November 27, 2009 ↩

Song for Dana Plato is part of the Song for ... series. ↩

Dana Plato was a former child star famous for playing Kimberley Drummond on the American sitcom Diff'rent Strokes. Plato was let go from the show when she became pregnant, as that didn't fit the producer's wholesome image for the show. She struggled with drug abuse and poverty for the rest of her life. Four years after this song was written, she committed suicide on May 8, 1999, overdosing on carisoprodol and alcohol in her trailer at the age of 34. Her son, Tyler Lambert, committed suicide the next year by shooting himself in the head on May 6, 2010, 25 years old.

In the liner notes, John mentions that the song takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada. Plato lived in Las Vegas for a short period of time, and was arrested there in 1991 for robbing a video store for less than $200 with a pellet gun.

Sporkin, Elizabeth (1991). Diff'rent Strokes, Fallen Stars. People Magazine.

The Mountain Goats have also written a song about Tyler Lambert, Tyler Lambert's Grave. ↩

Brilliantine is a men's hair product or pomade, dating to the late 19th century. ↩

A favorite of fans, often shouted for at shows and sometimes closing them, now played sparingly. There are many tellings of the long story told about this song, here's part of one of them. Watch the video if you can, it contains the dance and it's wonderful.

"I've really grown to hate this song. I mean, and I loved it so much, once... I heard it and like any reasonable person would, I said, 'Well, that's the greatest song of all time. I'm going to go buy that right now." ... Me and Rachel went on our first off-the-West-Coast tour; we played shows in Chicago and Columbus, it was a hell of a tour. And on the way from Columbus into Chicago, we heard The Sign on the radio, somebody got up and turned the station. And I said, 'What is wrong with you? Does God hate you or something? Has He not taught you how to love? Is that what's wrong with you? Is that why you changed the station just now, Liz?' 'Dude, you have to chill. I can just turn it back to the station.' 'We've already missed part of the song. You know, you can just fucking drop me off by the side of the road here and I'll starve to death now, now that you've ruined my life.' So she turned the song back, and [I] preached my gospel. I'm pretty convincing when I want to be, and so then we pulled off in Gary, Indiana, and bought the whole album on cassette. Put it into the tape deck — just kept rewinding. Listened to it once, twice, three times, four times, five times, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. By the time we got into Chicago, we had choreographed a dance. I believe I can remember it." — Zoop, Farm Sanctuary, New York, June 17, 2007

See also The Chameleon, San Francisco, January 15, 1995; Argo, Denton, September 11, 1996; Capitol Theater, Olympia, Yo-Yo-a-Go-Go Festival, July 16, 1997; Empty Bottle, Chicago, December 6, 1997; Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, June 23, 2001; 40 Watt Club, Athens, Georgia, August 3, 2001; Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, October 23, 2002; Black Cat, Washington, DC, October 11, 2004; Bottom of the Hill, March 2, 2008; American Theater Company, Chicago, May 16, 2010.

"Naw I'm burned out on it. Last couple times I'm playing it I'm like 'what is really the point of this? telling a joke everybody already knows? strollin' down those 90s-hits memory lane?'"

William Caxton Fan Club. Is there any way that you could play your cover of The Sign when you're in Asheville?, retrieved May 1, 2014. ↩

The Sign is part of the informal series of cover songs. ↩

The Sign was a massive hit pop song by Swedish pop group Ace of Base, released in 1993 on the album Happy Nation. ↩

John makes fun of this line a fair amount. See Zoop, Farm Sanctuary, New York, June 17, 2007; American Theater Company, Chicago, May 16, 2010. ↩

"[This] lyric is completely incomprehensible." — Empty Bottle, Chicago, December 6, 1997 ↩

For the next five lines, Rachel sings "I saw the sign, I saw the sign" as backing vocals. ↩