July 12 - Autoclave

In the middle period of the Mountain Goats (and it's July, we're well into that) there are a couple of overarching themes that it's worth observing. The songs are more confessional biographically, but they're also often much more nakedly emotional whether what is being talked about is directly an incident from the songwriter's life or not. Early Mountain Goats had a tendency to hide behind poetry, to allude to horror and vulnerability and indeed enthusiasm and passion rather than addressing these things head-on, and honestly who can blame a songwriter for that. In this period we're much more likely to get songs that are at their core a single feeling expressed in the most powerful way that John can express it.

The feeling here is sort of like the other symmetrical half of Get Lonely. Not its opposite, but a piece that matches from the other side. Get Lonely had a lot of wonderful songs about being without people, about seeking fleeting company, about yearning for the presence of others. This is about the fear of what will happen to people who you allow to get too close. Whatever approaches will be burnt up with proximity.

I'm fortunate - incredibly fortunate - to have the central conceit of this song feel alien to me. I've felt unworthy of love, I've felt lonely without it, but I've never felt that my very being was hostile to it. I can see how that trauma would manifest, and I'm grateful that mine has, historically, taken different forms.