Tallahassee ^{1 2 3}

John initially considered Flashburn and then Bottom Feeders as possible titles and wrote several lines of the title track for Bottom Feeders before settling on Tallahassee. See also the origin of Alpha Rats Nest and his use of the bottom feeder metaphor in the indispensable VPRO interview on January 15, 2003. Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, June 23, 2001; William Caxton Fan Club, the sleeve that held the boarding pass from my..., retrieved March 17, 2014. ↩

This album and every song on it is part of the Alpha couple series. For much, much more information on the couple in general, see there.

See for example Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, June 23, 2011, American Theater Company, Chicago, May 16, 2010, and the Mountain Goats 4AD biography circa 2002 for confirmation. ↩

"[The album is] about these people I've been writing about forever that I sort of abandoned — well, I didn't abandon them, I couldn't take it any more. They don't have any names, it's a man and a woman, they're from... Southern California, and they get married because they think that's a good idea. Now, this is where the trouble begins. They get married, and immediately, to celebrate their marriage, they begin drinking. And they drink a lot. And then they drink some more. And predictably, there really isn't much marriage because they're so narcissistic that they can't really — they do love each other, but they don't know how to do that. So there they are, married, you know. And you get married, that's a big thing to do. So they figure if they move, that will help — a lot of people think that. So they move to Nevada, and they live in a motel room drinking for about a year. Now, while I would recommend this as a step for marriage counseling — you never know what could work and what couldn't — that doesn't pan out for them, and so they flee across the country, trying to sort of escape the ghosts that are actually living inside of them. That was why I stopped writing about them, because when they got down to Tallahassee, I really felt like they got kind of raw. And this is weird to talk about, but they get down there and they buy a house and they live in it and they figure, you know, 'Here we are, we're married, and we bought a house, right, and so here we are, so we can do this'. They can't do this. But they want to. And so the album is about the fact that they want to." — Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, October 23, 2010

See also: William Caxton Fan Club, the sleeve that held the boarding pass from my..., retrieved March 17, 2014; Opalis, Norman, Oklahoma, November 13, 2002; and the phenomenal interview in the VPRO session, January 15, 2003. ↩

The Chevrolet El Camino was a popular and stylish coupé utility from the late 1950s through 1980s. ↩

Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons were an American pop group from the 1960s and 1970s. The lyric "Pretty as a midsummer's morn / They call her Dawn" is from their song Dawn (Go Away). ↩

Howlin' Wolf is one of the classic American bluesmen. He wrote and recorded the blues song Smokestack Lightning in 1956. His recording of the song earned him a Grammy award and became a signature of his body of work. ↩

Ambient dub is an electronic music genre blending elements of ambient and dub, forming an atmospheric, largely lyricless, spacey, reggae-influenced style. ↩

Jussi Bjorling was a major Swedish tenor opera singer from the 1930s through 1960s. ↩

Susy Smith was a purported psychic and author of many books on parapsychology and related pseudosciences, such as ghosts, ESP, and consciousness after death. ↩

R v Dudley and Stephens was a major British court case in which, as described, two seamen were sentenced to death for eating their companion to reduce the chance of their own demise. The ruling established that murder was unacceptable even if it seemed necessary to save one's own life, and was the topic of enormous public controversy due to the public of the time's sympathy towards castaways. The case is still studied in common law areas, and the incident remains influential in popular culture. ↩

A. W. B. Simpson was a law professor at the University of Michigan and historian of British law. Cannibalism and the Common Law: The Story of the Tragic Last Voyage of the Mignonette and the Strange Legal Proceedings to Which It Gave Rise was one of his many publications, focusing entirely on the described cannibalism case and its ramifications. ↩

Jimmy Lerner is an American poet and author, famous for his writings about being imprisoned in Nevada for manslaughter. Lerner was controversial for both the differences between his account of events and that of the police, and for being the case which struck down Nevada's Son of Sam law, which prohibited criminals from profiting from writing stories about their crimes.

The lines here are from his poem Fence Skeptic, published in his collection of poetry, It's All Part of the Punishment and originally published in the poetry journal Rattle:

Mommy warned me not to do it —
Jimmy, don't put that bobby pin
in the outlet —
daddy drove me to the emergency room,
mommy still in shock.

Daddy warned me not to do it —
Jimmy, don't touch the hot stove,
you'll burn your hand —
mommy drove me to the hospital,
daddy still steaming.

They say the fence here is electrified
that this is how some of us learn,
beneath the guntowers
behind the razor wire.

I stroll the yard,
my keen convicted mind
wondering
if the fence to freedom
will really deliver 50,000 volts.

Lerner, Jimmy (2000). Fence Skeptic. Rattle, 1(14). ↩

"This is a song about alcoholism... this song is about the miracle of love for a couple of people hell-bent on destroying themselves and one another, in that order." — St George's, Bristol, October 7, 2013.

Describing Tallahassee's place as the opening track, John says, "In the case of 'Tallahassee' it seemed like a scene-setting song: it introduced the principal characters, established that there's been a movement from the other side of the country to here, and took one last look in the rear view at the thing they once had that's now in collapse. Last look through more than one door as Joan Didion would have it. Water under the bridge and dynamite it behind you."

William Caxton Fan Club, How do you start and end albums?, retrieved March 18, 2014. ↩

Tallahassee is part of the informal series of Biblical references. ↩

Tallahassee is the state capital of Florida, USA, and the setting for much of the album's action. For more on this, see the album commentary and the Alpha series. ↩

Several people have pointed out that it sounds like someone is saying "Hey, John" very faintly over and over at the beginning of the track. John's statement on this is simply, "There is a thing there. It may be a voice though I'm not 100% clear on that. I'm reasonably certain it's not saying 'hey, John' but that's all I've got on this question at this time." He has later called this a ghost in the recording, discussing how no one is sure what this sound is or how it got there.

William Caxton Fan Club, In the very beginning of "Tallahassee," there seems to be a hardly audible voice in the background..., retrieved March 18, 2014. Center Church on-the-Green, New Haven, June 7, 2013. ↩

The destroying angel is an unnamed angel or angels sent by God throughout the Bible to cause death and destruction, such as killing the firstborn in the Tenth Plague of Egypt, or in the destruction of Jerusalem observed in 1 Chronicles. ↩

Also sung as "Crows on the lines / Squawking and bawling". See Bottom of the Hill, October 23, 2002. ↩

As the Alpha couple are heading to Tallahassee from Nevada (see above), the airport referred to here could be either McCarran International Airport or the Reno-Tahoe International Airport, the two major commercial airports of the state. ↩

"This is a love song about people who aren't in love any more... Yes, it is sad, and to combat the sadness they've taken to drinking, I'm sorry to report. It helps them feel better sometimes, other times it makes them feel bad. They have unfortunately learned that the only way to combat that bad feeling is to drink more. They've taken to drinking the cheap stuff. It tastes horrible and gives you awful headaches." — Black Cat, Washington, DC, October 11, 2004

"This is a song about the morning when you say to yourself, 'Divorce will come to my life. I have long suspected that I heard the beating of its wings on the wind, but now I know — now I know it's coming. I don't know how exactly, it's not any particular thing. It's not like, you know — on the Lifetime Movie Network there might be one signal event, you know, but it's not really like that I think, I think it's a collection of tiny little dust-mote things, that eventually become a mountain, rolling down 95 toward Tallahassee." — Troubadour, Los Angeles, December 13, 2012 ↩

Tampa is another Floridian city. The Alpha connection here is unclear, as Tampa is farther south from Tallahassee, meaning that it's not on their route from Las Vegas.

John writes that the influence of poet John Berryman, a Tampa native, and a line from the song The Wells Fargo Wagon in the 1962 film The Music Man contributed to his use of Tampa throughout his work. William Caxton Fan Club, I've never read anywhere about you living in Tampa..., retrieved March 18, 2014. ↩

The primary interstate heading towards Tallahassee from Tampa is Interstate 75, which ultimately intersects Interstate 10, which takes one west to Tallahassee. However, given the banter above, this could also refer to Interstate 95, which runs up the east coast of Florida before continuing up the East Coast. ↩

Also sung, "But they drop / Like flies". See Black Cat, Washington, DC, October 11, 2004. ↩

"I looked at a map of Tallahassee and there's this road out past the tracks, and then I wrote to a Mountain Goats fan that I know down there and I said, 'Would you live down there?' 'No, that wouldn't be a place you'd want to live.' 'Is property cheap down there?' 'Oh, yeah, yeah.' And so, I wanted them to have a house that they could maybe actually buy, but they haven't held jobs in forever, these people, so it'd need to be a cheap, very run-down house, and so, so I put it there." — VPRO session, January 15, 2003

John explains: "The house plays a big role in these people's crumble, it sort of is the third person in their marriage, because they almost never leave... It's kind of a celebration of how bad things have gotten." — Transition Video Magazine Issue 001, 2005

"Last time we were in Tallahassee, we were driving around, and I spotted this house. And as you may know, new album's called Tallahassee, and it takes place in this single house in Tallahassee that this married couple have inhabited as they drink their love into the ground. And we spotted this house, this abandoned place, and I went, 'Jesus, that looks like it, that could be their place, eh?' And we stopped, and it just had this ghostly, horrible aura to it, you know, it was condemned. The door was open, we went in — I couldn't stand to go deeper than the first room, there's broken bottles and cigarette butts everywhere, and I thought, 'Oh my God, this is where they did their thing." ... It turned out that it was on Monroe Street, instead of elsewhere. We passed it on the way to the Beta Bar last night, and it had been razed to the ground... This is a song about a house, and two people who were once in love. Now they're not, but they've got liquor and they've got each other's bodies, so they'll make do." — Will's Pub, Orlando, April 9, 2003. See also Opalis, Norman, Oklahoma, November 13, 2002; Transition Video Magazine Issue 001, 2005; John on the Mountain Goats forums, Southwood Plantation RoadFlashEarth, March 19, 2007, retrieved March 18, 2014; and El Rey Theater, Los Angeles, June 23, 2011.

"This is a dance number." — Berbati's Pan, Portland, October 3, 2003. See also Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, May 26, 2004, Black Cat, Washington, DC, October 11, 2004, Transition Video Magazine Issue 001, 2005, and 40 Watt Club, Athens, Georgia, August 10, 2006.

Unlike the usual gender neutrality of the Alpha couple songs, John has clarified that this is sung by the husband. Transition Video Magazine Issue 001, 2005.

An alternate mix is purported to exist, but has never surfaced. ↩

Southwood Plantation Road is a real road in Tallahassee and the location of the couple's run-down home. As discussed above, the location of the real-world home that John found later and felt was the archetype of their house is actually located on Monroe St. ↩

The state of Louisiana is known for its above-ground graveyards in which those entombed are put into vaults such as those in Saint Louis Cemetery. ↩

"I'll tell you how the song title was born... So, we're watching the E! Channel one evening, and E! has run out of things to do true Hollywood stories on, and bios, and so they start flashing in really grainy relief, you know, Pat Sajak, Alex Trebek, Vanna White, yeah, and Chuck Woolery, and the guy from Joker's Wild, whatever the hell that guy's name was... So, the show says, 'We laughed, we learned, in every way..." And my wife ad-libs, she says, 'Game shows touch our lives!" And I went, 'I gotta write that shit down!'" — China Clipper, Olympia, June 18, 2005

"This is a story about, as it happens, sometimes, that you find yourself in a house with a person who shares your enthusiasm for vodka, and you happen to have a TV. It's so nice to have a TV when you have all that cheap vodka and cigarettes that you buy bulk from one of those cigarette and batteries stores off the highway there. And maybe the cigarettes are a little stale, but maybe after a couple of slugs it doesn't matter so much, and then you have the TV, and you have the vodka, and you have the cigarettes, and you have each other." — Wow Hall, Eugene, June 21, 2005

The Tallahassee microsite contains a video of John with Michael Ganzeveld (an old friend of John's) yelling in a parody of a game show or home shopping channel, asking them, "How much would you pay?" The show hosts describe the Alpha couple's trajectory from Las Vegas until they "run out of road" and allude to Hood River gin. The video is playing on the television in the house. ↩

"The alcohol mentioned in the first line will land you in the drunk tank on the northeast side of Portland. I can't recommend it." — China Clipper, Olympia, June 18, 2005

Hood River Distillers is a producer of spirits based in Oregon, USA. Among others, they produce Broker's London Dry Gin. ↩

The idea of a booth with money flying around inside (with the aim of a contestant locked inside to gain as much as possible) has been used in many different game shows, but can be traced back to 1975 with The Diamond Head Game, a game show hosted by Bob Eubanks. ↩

Often sung as, "And you standing there, smoking Newports like a chimney", more rarely with other brand variants (such as Salems or Camels). China Clipper, Olympia, June 18, 2005; Wow Hall, Eugene, June 21, 2005; Visulite Theatre, Charlotte, January 31, 2012; Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, September 20, 2006; Black Cat, Washington, DC, September 20, 2007; and Evening of Awesome at Carnegie Hall, January 15, 2013. ↩

Also sung, "With everything / With every useless thing in me". Evening of Awesome at Carnegie Hall, January 15, 2013. ↩

A reference to the longrunning game show The Price is Right, in which contestants would attempt to win a showcase of prizes by guessing the retail price of the items. ↩

Also sung, "Your wasted kisses as light as the air". Evening of Awesome at Carnegie Hall, January 15, 2013. ↩

The House That Dripped Blood is a 1970 British horror film directed by Peter Duffel. ↩

"Wine-dark" is a famous phrase from Homer's Odyssey, where he frequently uses it to describe the ocean. This (and other color discrepancies) has led to a raft of theories about Homer's potentially being colorblind.

Thanks to Mairead Beeson for catching this! ↩

Idylls of the King is a cycle of twelve narrative poems by English poet Alfred Tennyson describing the legend of King Arthur. John has confirmed this allusion. William Caxton Fan Club, is the song "idylls of the king" related to..., retrieved March 20, 2014. ↩

Plantations litter the Southern United States. See also Southwood Plantation Road above. ↩

This line is "half-stolen from Tennyson"; plausibly these two lines from The Princess:

"The moan of doves in immemorial elms
And murmuring of innumerable bees."

Mountain Goats Twitter, (1), January 15, 2013, retrieved March 20, 2014.

Tennyson, Alfred Lord (2008). The Princess. Project Gutenberg, retrieved March 20, 2014. Original work published 1847. ↩

Holly Hobbie is a fictional character originally drawn by an artist of the same name in 1960, and featured in a novel entitled "The Adventures of Holly Hobbie" by Richard S. Dubelman. Her defining characteristic is that her face is constantly half-hidden by shadow. ↩

One of the encore staples along with This Year, The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton, and Going to Georgia. Often performed as a singalong, sometimes without instrumentation.

"There may come a day when you're gonna need the words to this song. You'll be sitting there going, 'What has become of my marriage? This blows.' Right? I want you to remember that I gave you a little something that you could sing, because when that time comes, there won't be much to do besides sing." — 40 Watt Club, Athens, Georgia, August 10, 2006. See also Bowery Ballroom, New York, October 1, 2006; Zoop II, Farm Sanctuary, New York, June 14, 2009; and St George's, Bristol, October 7, 2013.

"It's a love song. It's about how when two people love one another but then they succumb to the urge to want to kill each other, what's love like then?" — Mains d'Oeuvres, Mofo Festival, Paris, France, June 27, 2003. See also Lollapalooza, Playstation Stage, Chicago, August 5, 2011; Letters to Santa, Chicago, December 7, 2011; Visulite Theatre, Charlotte, January 31, 2012; McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, June 30, 2012; Bottletree, Birmingham, Alabama, June 22, 2013. ↩

A demo for No Children was released by John on the Mountain Goats forums during the final game of 2007 March Madness song matchups, which paired No Children against Color in Your Cheeks. It's awesome, go read it.

Mountain Goats forums, TMG March Madness! CHAMPIONSHIP, BABY!!, March 26, 2007, retrieved March 20, 2014. ↩

No Children is part of the informal series of demos. ↩

"I drove to the airport in Des Moines... and on the way in to Des Moines, I heard a song that was very popular at the time, 'cause Des Moines is very into country radio, and it was that, "I hope you dance", song, right? And I was listening, and I thought, 'God, this is horrifying, this is a terrible, terrible song, teaching people awful lies', and I was sort of singing along at the same time because it had a catchy melody. And the song goes, 'I hope you dance, I hope you dance', right? And I just sort of vamped on it, I went, 'I hope you die, I hope you die', right? And I thought, 'Well, that's an idea, isn't it, right?' So I scribbled it down on a receipt, and I tucked it into my pocket, and I got on the plane to Des Moines... I had a couple hours to kill, and I wrote the first verse, and I was like, "Oh God, I hope I remember this song, this seems like a good idea!" — 40 Watt Club, Athens, Georgia, August 10, 2006. See also McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, June 30, 2012.

The song in question that inspired No Children is Lee Ann Womack's I Hope You Dance. ↩

See also the See America Right single. ↩

Greyhound Lines is a major long-distance bus company in the USA. ↩

Inglis is a small town in Florida near Tallahassee. ↩

Cedar Key is a city in Floria in the same county as Inglis. ↩

On the Tallahassee microsite, peacocks are found in the front yard, alongside a pamphlet titled The Shocking Truth About Peacocks. The pamphlet states:

Peacocks have a highly developed language, and are thought by many scientists to be the only animal besides man capable of expressing itself abstractly.

In prehistoric cultures the peacock has been observed to hold totemic status. Archaeological evidence strongly suggests that several American communities prior to the continental drift considered the peacock an omen of death or disaster, and left ablutions at the entrances to their dwelling-places before retiring to sleep nightly.

Between 1970 and 1978, peacocks were directly or indirectly responsible for no fewer than 37 deaths in the upper Ohio Valley — more than any other animal, predator or prey, in the same region during the same timespan.

Some peacock mating rituals can take as long as one full calendar year.

Peacocks mate for life, but one mate will often attempt to kill the other just prior to migration.

Contrary to popular belief, peacocks do not eat their young.

However it is generally conceded that peacocks are scavengers, and will submit wholly on carrion for whole seasons at a time. Many once-prominent aviculturalists have left the profession entirely after tending to peacocks through several seasons. The turnover race within the profession is equalled only by that of severe trauma wards in urban hospitals. ↩ ↩²

"This song is about how they feel about each other and the great love that they wished they had instead of the case of vodka they traded it in for." — Opalis, Norman, Oklahoma, November 13, 2002

"This is a song about the tender feelings people experience toward one another when they are in love and they have tender feelings. It should probably be called, "Tender Feelings", but I am a disingenuous song titler." — Berbati's Pan, Portland, October 3, 2003 ↩

Havana is the capital of Cuba. ↩

The Everglades is a large tropical swampland and estuary ecosystem in Southern Florida. ↩

During the Cold War, and especially the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, Cuba's dependence on aid, and Russia's hostilities with the United States led to an alliance against American interests. However, I don't know of a particular incident that this might be describing. ↩

In 1997 the Albanian people rebelled against their government, resulting in over 3,000 deaths and the trafficking of weapons caches into Greece. ↩

A reference to Best of My Love, a 1977 hit disco song by the Emotions with the chorus, "You've got the best of my love". ↩

"This is a song about a certain vibe you get in a house where you're planning on getting a divorce before too long." — Troubadour, Los Angeles, December 16, 2011 ↩

Kingston is the capital of Jamaica. ↩

Plausibly a bloodstain, which results in rust colors on white fabric. ↩

"My favorite thing about this song on the album is that you can hear, if you listen very, very, very closely, the moment when Peter got back from making the food run, and he didn't realize we were tracking... I remember it happening, and I [thought], 'Oh God, this is a pretty good take, and now I'm going to have to do it again", and I'm a very irritable person when it comes to multiple takes... I feel like I'm in my zone and out of the corner of my eye I see Peter come in with, like, a sandwich. And he walks in... <laughter> But if you listen to the song on Tallahassee, you can hear the creak of the door during an instrumental interlude. I love it so much." — McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, June 30, 2012

You can hear the creak at around 1:45 on the studio track. ↩

"It's about the love we have in our hearts for our own eventual destruction. You look yourself in the mirror sometimes and you feel the tenderness that a person can only feel for him or herself when he knows that doom is imminent." — Troubadour, Los Angeles, December 16, 2011

"You know how in some operas, usually not the good ones, there'll be some sort of... guy'll come out and basically tell you what to expect... Guy comes out and says "Well, you'll be seeing me and I'll be divorcing my wife and then by the end of the play we'll all be quite miserable and I hope you enjoy it and pay us afterwards." ... This song is sort of like that moment from Tallahassee where everybody is announcing that, you know: "Looks as though divorce is what's next for us, eh? Let's get everything lined up for the big ugly divorce, shall we?" And they sort of look each other in the eyes and say "Yes, let's!" — Remis Auditorium, Boston, October 27, 2005 ↩

An "old college try" is a vigorous and committed attempt to do something. ↩

Also sung, "From the aspirins to the Quaaludes to the Elavils". Quaalude is a brand name for the drug methaqualone, a central depressant used to treat insomnia and frequently recreationally abused. Cat's Cradle, Carrboro, July 17, 2004. ↩

Aspirin is the common painkiller drug, whereas cross-tops refer to the shape of pills notched into quadrants so they're easier to break up. Elavil is a brand name for amitriptyline, a medication used to treat depression. ↩

"It's another love song, sort of." — Mains d'Oeuvres, Mofo Festival, Paris, France, June 27, 2003 ↩

My best guess is that this refers to either of the cult Turkish superhero films Kilink Istanbul'da or Kilink Uçan Adama Karşı, in which Kilink, a criminal dressed as a skeleton, battles a man who can turn into Superman. However, neither films contain a swordfighting scene, so this line may refer to a different unauthorized Kilink film, or a film about the related superheroes and supervillains Diabolik, Satanik, and Kriminal. Both of the films mentioned are available on the Internet Archive. Kilink Istanbul'da, Kilink Uçan Adama Karşı (1967). Retrieved March 3, 2014. ↩

"Most albums that I write I don't know what the order of the songs is going to be while I'm writing... But I always knew this was going to be the last song on Tallahassee." — Zoop - Farm Sanctuary, New York, June 17, 2007

John had considered naming the album Bottom Feeders, including writing the following lines for the title track:

If you don't give a rat a pellet
He's not going to push the lever
Take one last look at the West Coast
Say goodbye forever

The rat in these lines became the rat of Alpha Rats Nest. William Caxton Fan Club, the sleeve that held the boarding pass from my..., retrieved March 17, 2014. ↩

Plausibly an inversion of the refrain of the celebrated villanelle Do not go gentle into that good night by the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, which goes, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light". The poem is transparently about death, and is in full:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Thomas, Dylan (1952). The Poems of Dylan Thomas. New York: New Directions. p. 239.

Thank you very much to Mairead Beeson for noticing this and telling me! ↩