About 61 results
https://miscellany.pckt.blog/january-20-quetzacoatl-comes-through-paqfky1 · 20 Jan 2026
So the first thing to observe about this song is that the thing uploaded to Youtube under its name isn't this song but rather a superbly 80s weird little synth keyboards things. It's quite nice in its own way and very much fits into the idea of This Year b...
https://miscellany.pckt.blog/january-19-thanks-for-the-dress-q709a9m · 19 Jan 2026
Cheeky start there, John, burst of radio channels ending with "please keep feeding us". Very sound collage. Hot Garden Stomp continues to feel like one of the earlier places where John was saying "all right, so this is what I sound like, but what if I didn...
https://miscellany.pckt.blog/january-18-going-to-japan-famhypx · 19 Jan 2026
A frantic and uncertain start to a sing that grows into its confidence even as the whirlwind of ifs lyrics grows in speed. This is a sketch, but it's a sketch that feels like it covers ground that later John would either move away from or come back to from...
https://miscellany.pckt.blog/january-17-billy-the-kids-dream-of-the-magic-shoes-g1h55y6 · 17 Jan 2026
There are many archetypes of a Mountain Goats song, but one of my favourite ones is a cheerful ditty about death. This is a short bouncy number with a lot of lyrical repetition, about a guy facing his end with sanguinity because of his special shoes. As su...
https://miscellany.pckt.blog/january-16-fresh-cherries-in-trinidad-s08z852 · 16 Jan 2026
Castio-tastic start to this, but a delightful narrative vignette. A tiny sweet moment, as sweet as a fresh cherry. And that's almost it. Not every song has an important point or a poignant moral, some are just small patches of brightness in a dark world. Y...
https://miscellany.pckt.blog/january-15-song-for-mark-and-joel-ws864pw · 15 Jan 2026
This song is a series of fraying loops. A chaotic, rolling guitar rhythm, the fuzz of the cassette recorder mixing with the fuzz of the acoustic guitar mixing with the repeated lyrical refrains that pointed to a life that went on and on, almost the same ea...
https://miscellany.pckt.blog/january-14-going-to-norwalk-97ys7zd · 14 Jan 2026
This is a vignette with a ghost in it, a delightful and time honoured musical tradition. A slice from John's life from which he has removed himself and added another. Musically this is about as simple as most of the early Mountain Goats material: a repeati...
https://miscellany.pckt.blog/january-13-the-last-day-of-jimi-hendixs-life-dj423ru · 14 Jan 2026
A gentle song to start with, this begins in what the cruel might call banality but which I think of as melancholy comfort. The small moments in a majestic life before it knows it's over. Like (let's face it) most people listening to Hendrix, I came to him ...
https://miscellany.pckt.blog/january-12-song-for-cleomenes-6zjkgjz · 14 Jan 2026
oh, I love the riff for this, the slow descending chaotic catastrophic roll of guitar with spoken words over the top. And what words. Easy to listen to, steady in pace, but setting a scene of impending pain and disaster. John's love for the vast period we ...
https://miscellany.pckt.blog/january-11-new-star-song-bf4cy27 · 14 Jan 2026
There's something about John's simple, narrative, confessional songs that really strike home the most. The ones where the words are in a sense very straightforward and in another crackling with imagery and meaning. I can see the narrator of New Star Song w...