June 6 - Magpie
The most consciously folksy song on a not-very-folksy album, and one of the only ones to fit the Mountain Goats trope of list of things you must do which is one of my favourite tropes. Remember what we had here when there was something left to save is the kind of line that I'm always going to regret not being good enough to write myself. This is a song about reckoning, and scavenging, and paying prices that might well be too bad. There's no reasoning with the magpie, he will take what he takes a...
he most consciously folksy song on a not-very-folksy album, and one of the only ones to fit the Mountain Goats trope of "list of things you must do" which is one of my favourite tropes.
"Remember what we had here when there was something left to save" is the kind of line that I'm always going to regret not being good enough to write myself.
This is a song about reckoning, and scavenging, and paying prices that might well be too bad. There's no reasoning with the magpie, he will take what he takes and you will be left with what you're left with. And you will go on, because what other choice is there.
And then, after this folk horror, we drift back towards regular horror.