james called yesterday morning, and what would've ordinarily been a minute-long exchange about whether or not i was going to come get a cup of tea from him turned into a long conversation about meanness, specifically, why we are mean to people, what does meanness achieve, etc.
the thing i like most about early mountain goats is how abstract the voice is. a lot of people get hung up about what they perceive as the confessional and specific in his music, when really, it couldn't be farther from the truth: in early mountain goats songs, everything is standardized, transferable, universal--it's microcosmic: "well i see you left me a photograph of a leopard tearing an antelope in half / what have you done, what have you done, what have you done with our love?" he throws in two more blues-standard verses, but he could've had a 45-second imagist heartbreak; i usually cut it off after the first verse, because asking me to handle more is asking a lot.
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