The Life of the World to Come ^{1 2 3}

"It's twelve new songs: twelve hard lessons the Bible taught me, kind of." — Darnielle, John (2009, July 28). The Good News The Mountain Goats. Retrieved May 16, 2012. ↩

The title is derived from the closing lines of the Nicene Creed, which in the Roman Catholic version states, "... We look for the resurrection of the dead, / and the life of the world to come. / Amen." The Nicene Creed, Catechism of the Catholic Church, The Vatican, retrieved May 16, 2012. ↩

This album and every song on it is part of the informal series of Biblical references. Generally, each song would be individually referenced to denote this, but as every song on the album falls into this category I considered this unnecessary. ↩

The Essenes were a Jewish religious order around 200 BCE to 100 AD from which the Dead Sea Scrolls are believed to have originated. ↩

Scribes in Israel were the copiers of the Torah as well as literate members of society who performed professional tasks related to being able to read, write, and manage documents. ↩

"I do remember at some point I was pretty pleased with myself for saying, 'Well, this is a song about how I became a crystal healer and my ministry was to the sick.'" — Swedish-American Hall, San Francisco, June 28, 2012

"This is a song about safe spaces." — Front Porch Festival, Wente Vineyards, Livermore, September 1, 2012

"This is a song about good faith." — Judge John Hodgman, Episode 98: All Dogs Go to Trial, Sketchfest, San Francisco, February 20, 2013 ↩

"For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and defiance is like wickedness and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king." 1 Samuel 15:23, Holman Christian Standard Bible, retrieved May 16, 2012. ↩

In Greek mythology, Tantalus was punished for his many misdeeds by being forced to stand, thirsty and hungry, in a fresh pool with a vine overhead full with grapes. When he reached for either the vine or the water, it would recede out of his grasp. It is unknown whether this reference was intended. ↩

Likely a reference to Isaiah 56:7. This is clearest in the King James Version, which reads, "Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people."

Thanks to Sam Duncan for pointing this out! ↩

These lines in 1 Samuel 15:23 and Proverbs 6:27 bear a remarkable similarity to each other and to the phrase in the Satanic Messiah liner notes. However, I've been unable to find a source for the line; if you know, I'd love to hear from you.

AKM Adam, theologian and scholar who has written about the Mountain Goats, has this to say about these lines:

this corresponds to a great extent to John's recurrent allusions to 1 Cor 13:12, though there's obviously a certain difference (or you'd have made the connection explicit). There's no consistent connection between a Greek word and the English gloss "shape", so the reference is harder to track down. HCSB apparently doesn't use "shape" at all in its New Testament (and none of the OT usages seem to fit Darnielle's usage). Among the candidates in Greek, I'd think first of eikôn (image), then homoiôma (likeness), morphê (form), schêma (form), eidos (form, appearance), but none of these seems just right. Interestingly, though, eidos is what Paul uses in 2 Cor 5:7 when he says "we walk by faith, not by sight (dia eidous)." If that's the clue (and it's tenuous), it would connect us again to the eschatological hope of true seeing, possibly connecting to 1 John 3:2, "...what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is." And, of course, the transformation motif John alludes to in Phil 3:20-21.

While Adventists might connect Sunday worship with the Book of Daniel, there's still no conventional phrase "the sign of Daniel" for which one might look. The closest candidate, to my mind, would be the revelation of the Son of Man in Daniel 7:

"As I watched in the night visions,
I saw one like a human being [Son of Man]
coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One
and was presented before him.
To him was given dominion
and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
that shall not pass away,
and his kingship is one
that shall never be destroyed. "

Even then, there's no "sign" one might recognise. That's the case also, though, for "the sign of Jonah", about which I wrote my first published article, so it probably doesn't make a big difference. If it's not the handwriting on the wall, then Daniel himself might be the sign: the prophet in a foreign country, making his way as best he can, trying to keep faith under hostile circumstances.

AKM Adam, personal correspondence, April 10, 2016. ↩ ↩²

"This is a story about the transcendental romantic joy of desecrating a church with the one you love." — August 5, 2011, Lollapalooza, Playstation Stage, Chicago. John expresses similar banter elsewhere, such as at the Troubadour, Los Angeles on December 16, 2011, where he implies that the lovers are men.

This was inspired by Missouri's Precious Moments Chapel. 9:30 Club, Washington, DC, November 27, 2009.

John describes this song at some length in a 2009 interview. "I'm... saying that your ideas of God will come to rest upon you in your moment of profoundest degradation, which is kind of what that song is about." — Breihan, Tom (2009, September 8). John Darnielle Tells the Story Behind the Mountain Goats' Biblical New LP. Pitchfork Retrieved May 16, 2012 . ↩

The demo for Psalms 40:2 was released on The Life of the World in Flux. ↩

"He brought me up from a desolate pit, out of the muddy clay, and set my feet on a rock, making my steps secure." Psalms 40:2, Holman Christian Standard Bible, retrieved May 16, 2012. ↩

Reminiscent of Matthew 11:28, in which Jesus says, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

King James Version of the Bible, retrieved October 28, 2014. ↩

Signs in the sky are featured in several places in the Bible. Consider the following verses:

Luke 21:11: "There will be violent earthquakes, and famines and plagues in various places, and there will be terrifying sights and great signs from heaven."

Jeremiah 10:2: "This is what the Lord says: "Do not learn the way of the nations or be terrified by signs in the heavens, although the nations are terrified by them..."

Both references are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible, accessed May 11, 2013. ↩

A direct quote of the Biblical verse in the title. ↩

Red Roof Inns are a cheap motel chain in the United States. ↩

This seems to reference Psalms 119:171: "My lips pour out praise, for You teach me Your statutes." Holman Christian Standard Bible, accessed May 11, 2013. ↩

John describes this song as being about visiting places where one has lived and had intense, disastrous experiences, and specifically about breaking and entering houses where one formerly lived.. Listen for example to the banter at the Durham Be Easy Festival, August 14, 2009, Durham Armory, North Carolina. This is further described in the Breihan 2009 Pitchfork interview referenced more fully above, in which John describes feeling the need to go through his old places in Portland and Claremont as a way of coping with abuse.

The interviewer notes that while John is wanting to revisit abusive or destructive households, the verse describes being cast out of Eden. In response, John says:

"Well, everything's Edenic. Everything is. I really don't know what your past is like, but I've got to assume, like everyone else, you have plenty of pain in it, right? But when you go back to the places where the pain was at, you find that there was more stuff there, and that there's stuff about it that you miss just because it's you. Because that's who you were, and you grow to accept that. When you do that kind of stuff, whether it's Eden or not, it is. Every place that you left is Eden in some way." ↩

The demo for Genesis 3:23 was released on The Life of the World in Flux. ↩

"So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken." Genesis 3:23, Holman Christian Standard Bible, retrieved May 16, 2012. ↩

Clear Lake is the name of many towns, but given John's reference to Portland it perhaps refers to a unincorporated town near Salem, Oregon (map). However, John refers to his house being near North Broadway (Breihan 2009), placing it well within Portland city limits.

Perhaps more likely is that the town is an homage to Clear Lake, Iowa, which is only an hour or so north of Ames, where John lived while writing the Coroner's Gambit. Thanks to Dan Coffey (of Ames himself!) for pointing this out!

The house in this story may thus be fictional or from another part of his life, and could be from one of several states, including California and Iowa, both states where John has resided. ↩

From Breihan 2009, Pitchfork:

Pitchfork: 'Philippians 3:20 – 21', that's a verse about how Jesus will make your body like his body. That's when you're dying?

JD: Yes. It's about what happens after you die.

Pitchfork: That's what you're singing about there?

JD: The song is actually about a specific person. I'm not going to say who, but it's a person of note.

Pitchfork: Is it Michael Jackson?

JD: No. [laughs] No, I would have to have been pretty fast to have written a Michael Jackson song, gotten into the studio, gotten it mastered into the sequence and ready for the album. The song is about the conflict between what people say happens after we die and the sort of lives we live. It's kind of an angry-at-God sort of song. Because you hear of people who suffered their entire life that, once they die, now their [sic] won't have bad days, because they're with God. People say that.

And you think, well, maybe God could have been more merciful and let them off the hook earlier. Brought them into this place of no suffering and eternal bliss and presence of the most high a lot earlier and saved this person a lot of unnecessary pain, instead of having them suffer their entire lives. And in the case of people who are so damaged they wind up taking their own lives, well, you'd think an all-powerful God could have prevented that. It's in the nature of being all-powerful, right? I had a specific person in mind. The song is about the sorts of hard questions that come up when somebody kills himself. ↩

The demo for Philippians 3:20 was released on The Life of the World in Flux. ↩

"... but our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subject everything to Himself." Philippians 3:20 – 21, Holman Christian Standard Bible, retrieved May 16, 2012. ↩

A reference to William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. In the section Proverbs of Hell, Blake writes:

In seed-time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

The poem celebrates sensual pleasures and earthly feelings as having a spiritual place, in contrast to the morals typical of his time.

Thank you to Mairead Beeson to pointing out this reference!

Blake, William. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Archived by Project Gutenberg. Retrieved September 14, 2017. ↩

Sung as, "Lined with psychotropics", in the demo. ↩

"It is about the solitary universe of self-mutilation." — 9:30 Club, Washington, DC, November 27, 2009 ↩

"... since God had provided something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us." Hebrews 11:40, Holman Christian Standard Bible, retrieved May 16, 2012. ↩

The demo for Hebrews 11:40 was released on The Life of the World in Flux. ↩

Sung as, "No grave is ever gonna hold me", in the demo. ↩

The song is directly about the love in the Biblical story of Jacob and Rachel, who was barren and so asked Jacob to sleep with her handmaiden Bilhah so that the two of them could raise children together.

"This is a song about three people who love each other and eventually four. People in Biblical times speaking out on the subject of what does and doesn't count as marriage, 'cause as it turns out, it's about who you love." 9:30 Club, Washington, DC, November 27, 2009. See also Hopscotch, Durham, September 8, 2012; People's Place, Amsterdam, October 13, 2013. ↩

"Then she said, "Here is my slave Bilhah. Go sleep with her, and she'll bear children for me so that through her I too can build a family." Genesis 30:3, Holman Christian Standard Bible, retrieved May 16, 2012. ↩

John discusses writing Romans 10:9 in a Colorado hotel room after reading a Gideons Bible in the aforementioned 2009 Pitchfork interview. For context, see the quotation referenced in the Philippians 3:20 – 21 footnote.

Pitchfork: Well, that ties in with "Romans 10:9".

JD: Yeah, those two [referring to Philippians 3:20–21] are kind of a pair, I feel.

Pitchfork: That's one of the few songs where you actually have the verse in the song. This one says that if you believe, then good things will happen to you. It seems to be someone keeping that in their head literally when everything in their life is going to shit.

JD: That is a solid reading. There's a really personal aspect to it, too, that I don't want to go into. But that is one of the harder songs on the album. The last couple of years have been a challenge for me in a couple of ways. But yeah, you have these moments where you look for something to reach for. I think that's when people are very vulnerable to joining up with religion, when they're looking for some sort of promise. But it's also a time when you have to be honest with yourself about how attractive those promises are to you personally, not for some other person. The notion that you can make some decision to feel a certain way and be relieved of some suffering — that's legit, right? It's not something to be scoffed at or dismissed lightly.

Pitchfork: Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the whole idea behind believing, right? That's how my dad always explained it to me.

JD: Yeah. Because there is going to be a lot of suffering. So it would be nice to think that it won't have been in vain. ↩

The demo for Romans 10:9 was released on The Life of the World in Flux. ↩

"If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9, Holman Christian Standard Bible, retrieved May 16, 2012. ↩

Although this lyric is listed in many places as "... waiting for the shift list", if you listen closely, the 'p' in 'ship' is very clear, as is the word 'to'. Thank you very much to AKM Adam for pointing this out, as I had initially mistaken the lyric as well. ↩

Sung as, "And in the shower the little soaps and shampoos seem like ancient bottled ambergris", in the demo. Ambergris is a product of sperm whale digestion, used for many years in perfumes, as incense, or as a ward against illness. ↩

No clear sign of Daniel exists in the Bible or religious practice, according to A.K.M. Adam. Adam suggests that John is referring to "the handwriting on the Belshazzar's Wall (Dan 5)" (p. 126), but mentions that there are several other possible signs in the Book of Daniel.

Another possible interpretation involves the Eternal Gospel Church, an extreme sect of Seventh-day Adventism, which holds that changing the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday is a mark of the Antichrist. They gained notoriety by purchasing billboard space throughout the United States proclaiming that this Mark of the Beast is stated in Daniel 7:25: "He will speak words against the Most High and oppress the holy ones of the Most High. He will intend to change religious festivals and laws, and the holy ones will be handed over to him for a time, times, and half a time."

Adam, A.K.M. (2011). 'What these cryptic symbols mean': quotation, allusion, and John Darnielle's biblical interpretation. Biblical Interpretation 19: 109 – 128. ↩

"This is a song about a desperate feeling that I wrote during a pretty dark time when I first bought a piano, because the only thing that could comfort me was the sound of one. And that was how those piano songs started to get written, was that I was having a very hard time and pianos managed to get to me in a way other things couldn't." — March 24, 2012, Kaufman Center Ecstatic Music Fest, New York.

"This is a love song." — American Theater Company, Chicago, May 16, 2010 ↩

The demo for 1 John 4:16 was released on The Life of the World in Flux. ↩

"And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him." 1 John 4:16, Holman Christian Standard Bible, retrieved May 16, 2012. ↩

From the 2009 Pitchfork interview:

Pitchfork: 'Matthew 25:21' is pretty explicitly about watching someone die of cancer.

JD: Yeah, that one is about my mother-in-law. Straight autobiographical song. It's about the time that I — oh man, it's hard to talk about. It's about the time that I called my wife from tour, and she had gone to be with her mom and she said, 'We're thinking it could come any minute.' I was on tour, and I couldn't not go say goodbye, so I canceled a show in Northampton, Massachusetts and flew home, drove in and stayed in that environment where someone is about to leave their body at a very young age. I was there for about 24 hours, and then I turned around and went back to tour and stepped from a cab onto stage. It was really disorienting in a really heavy, heavy way. So yeah. That's for her.

This has been seconded elsewhere, see for example the beautiful version of this song on the March 29, 2011 KEXP session or at the American Can Factory, Chicago, May 16, 2010. ↩

The demo for Matthew 25:21 was released on The Life of the World in Flux. ↩

"His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful slave! You were faithful over a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Share your master's joy!' Matthew 25:21, Holman Christian Standard Bible, retrieved May 16, 2012. ↩

Sometimes John uses other narcotic painkillers here; on the March 29, 2011 KEXP session and at the American Can Factory, Chicago, May 16, 2010, he chose Demerol. ↩

The Harbor Freeway is another name for State Route 110 between downtown Los Angeles and San Pedro Bay Harbor. Named Freeways, Highways, Structures and Other Appurtenances in California, California Department of Transportation, p. 175. Retrieved May 16, 2012. ↩

A road running from East Los Angeles to La Mirada in Los Angeles County. Many hospitals and other healthcare facilities exist in the area. ↩

Sung as, "I wish you were still around to break my fall", on the demo. ↩

"This is to things that go extinct and are no more." — Troubadour, Los Angeles, December 16, 2012. See also 9:30 Club, Washington, DC, November 27, 2009.

"This is the sort of song a person might write if he's beginning to wonder if he's ever going to have children." Apolo, Barcelona, October 19, 2013 ↩

The demo for Deuteronomy 2:10 was released on The Life of the World in Flux. ↩

"The Emim, a great and numerous people as tall as the Anakim, had previously lived there." Deuteronomy 2:10, Holman Christian Standard Bible, retrieved May 16, 2012.

The focus on extinctions in this song might also be seen in Genesis 30:3, which mentions being the last ones of our kind. ↩

This refers to the thylacine (or Tasmanian tiger), which became extinct in 1936. The last known thylacine died in captivity in the Hobart Zoo in Australia, as described here. John confirmed that this is about the thylacine at the Troubadour show on December 16, 2011. McKnight, M. (2008) Thylacinus cynocephalus. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Version 2011.2. Retrieved on May 16, 2012. ↩

This apparently refers to the dodo, which was hunted to extinction by 1690 on the island of Mauritius. BirdLife International. (2008). Raphus cucullatus. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Version 2011.2. Retrieved on May 16, 2012. ↩

The final verse refers to the golden toad, a Costa Rican toad rendered extinct by climate change, among other causes. The last known toad was found in 1989. John confirmed this reference at the Troubadour, December 16, 2011: "I got so sad when I wrote that song. 'Cause this is about the golden toad in Costa Rica, there's none of them left at all, right. It's one of those documentably exinct animals that we killed so that we could cut some forest down." Pounds, Alan, Jay Savage, and Federico Bolaños.(2004). Incilius periglenes. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Version 2011.2. Retrieved on May 16, 2012. ↩

Sung as, "No others left, and there'll be no more after me", on the demo. ↩

"This is about terminal illness." — November 12, 2010, Memorial Hall, Chapman University, Orange. This is echoed in Swedish-American Hall, San Francisco, June 27, 2012, and 9:30 Club, Washington, DC, November 27, 2009. ↩

The demo for Isaiah 45:23 was released on The Life of the World in Flux. ↩

"By Myself I have sworn; Truth has gone from My mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow to Me, every tongue will swear allegiance." Stated very similarly to in the liner notes to All Hail West Texas. Isaiah 45:23, Holman Christian Standard Bible, retrieved May 16, 2012. ↩ ↩²

A quotation from Isaiah 40:4, in which the speaker is exhorting their audience to build a path for God:

Every valley will be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill will be leveled;
the uneven ground will become smooth
and the rough places, a plain.

Holman Christian Standard Bible, retrieved October 28, 2014. ↩

A lengthy prediction of destruction and judgement. Ezekiel 7, Holman Christian Standard Bible, retrieved May 16, 2012. ↩

"As an American, I spent a lot of time thinking about people torturing one another to death in the desert, so that's what this song is about." — St George's, Bristol, October 7, 2013. Echoed in Front Porch Festival, Wente Vineyard, Livermore, September 1, 2012; Troubadour, Los Angeles, December 13, 2012; 9:30 Club, November 27, 2009; People's Place, Amsterdam, October 13, 2013.

In an aside, John describes the protagonist as a "torturer/enforcer" for an "international crime syndicate" on his blog. ↩

Efficacious grace is a teaching in some branches of Christianity, particularly Calvinism, which states that some individuals are predestined to be granted the grace of God and eternal salvation. ↩

Culiacán is a city in Sinaloa, Mexico (map). ↩

As described with great love and frequency by John, this song is based on an experience he had playing the game Odin Sphere, in which, due to his desire to play the game to escape pain in his own life, along with appreciation for the game's complex, novelesque plot and cutscenes, he found himself deeply empathizing with some of the dialogue's emotions. 9:30 Club, Washington DC, November 27, 2009; Letters to Santa, Chicago, December 7, 2011; Troubadour, Los Angeles, December 16, 2011; Merkin Concert Hall, New York, March 24, 2012; Barbican, London, April 2, 2012; Swedish-American Hall, San Francisco, June 28, 2012; People's Place, Amsterdam, October 13, 2013.

See also Thank You Mario but Our Princess Is in Another Castle, another emotional song with video game origins. ↩

Enoch 18:14 is also part of the informal series of outtakes and informal series of demos. ↩

The demo for Enoch 18:14 was released on The Life of the World in Flux. ↩

The Book of Enoch is not generally part of the Bible and is considered scripture only by some churches. Multiple versions and translations exist, with no clear standard to a lay person. One translation of Enoch 18:14 reads, "The angel said: 'This place is the end of heaven and earth: this has become a prison for the stars and the host of heaven...'"

Charles, RH (1917). The Book of Enoch. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Publishing. Archived with the Internet Archive, retrieved April 10, 2014. ↩

As described by John, this is derived from a cutscene from the video game Odin Sphere, which follows five different characters through a great war in the fictional world of Erion. This particular line comes from a cutscene in the Pooka Prince storyline, Chapter 5, Act 6: Frontlines of the Cauldron War, in which the protagonist Prince Cornelius of Titania sees his love interest, Velvet, in a barren wasteland along with their antagonist, Velvet's grandfather, King Valentine, who has been cursed to suffer in the Netherworld after his death. King Valentine attacks Cornelius and steals a powerful ring from him:

King Valentine: The ring has been returned to its rightful owner.
Velvet: Grandfather, please think about this.
King Valentine: You and your brother both escaped the curse. You can't comprehend what it's like! This pain and suffering. Neither can Odin, nor the Fairies, nor all of Titania! They must see Hell firsthand.
Velvet: You want the world to end?
King Valentine: Take a good look at me. All I want is oblivion. Yes, the world's demise — just like the prophecies, the lid to Hell opens. The time has now come.

The brother mentioned is Velvet's brother, Ingway, an enemy of Cornelius. The scene ends with Cornelius fighting King Valentine and recovering the ring. ↩

Proverbs 6:27 is also part of the informal series of outtakes and informal series of demos. ↩

"Can a man embrace fire
and his clothes not be burned?"

Proverbs 6:27, Holman Christian Standard Bible, retrieved April 10, 2014. ↩

The demo for Proverbs 6:27 was released on The Life of the World in Flux. ↩

Betamax was a cassette tape format in the 1970s, outcompeted and obsoleted by VHS. ↩

Given the two lines alluding to a film, this seems to describe the 1986 Israeli action film The Delta Force, which starred Chuck Norris as an American commando attempting to rescue passengers from fictional Flight 282, captured by Lebanese terrorists. ↩ ↩²