The Mountain Goats explain lyrics

Jon Wurster, John Darnielle, Peter Hughes (Credit: D.L. Anderson)

John Darnielle has penned 13 albums in the past 14 years as the Mountain Goats, making for thousands of lyrics left to our own interpretation, all tucked inside Darnielle's subtle, gorgeous and lyrically dense folk rock. So Metromix literally begged one of rocks' most complex minds for explanation behind some lyrics in this year's “All Eternals Deck” — and to our surprise, he complied.

And high above the water the eagle spots the fish / Every martyr in this jungle is gonna get his wish. (“Estate Sale Sign”)
If you are a fish in a stream, you are completely unconscious of predators very high above you, made by whichever designing hand's responsible for all that stuff. He sees what he's doing and knows where he's going to be there; (he's) focused on getting from one place to the next, unaware. This is true for martyrs in the jungle too … like in a Scott Savage type of book or an H.G. Wells type of book. The missionaries marching through the jungle are presumably being gospels and know what they're doing.

Fat rich men love their 12-year-olds. (“The Autopsy Garland”)
Judy Garland was raped by talent scouts. In a biography of her younger days they don't call it rape, but if you are 12 and have to have sex to get a part, that's rape. I wanted to marry Judy Garland when I was 5 years old. I told my mother this, and she had to tell me that she was dead. You see her for all the hope and wonder in her voice and face, but the inevitable darkness behind all that is terrible. Parents put her on stage before she was really hardy enough to stand up. The result can make for spectacular performers, but the stage can be a strange and terrible place.

Catch a lucky break, try to make it last. (“For Charles Bronson”)
(Bronson's) movies sort of invented the nihilistic, presumably very moralistic movies. But they're not moral, because the guy always engages in this horrible overkill of torture of the people who had presumably done wrong. (Bronson) did get cast in those movies early on and he was somehow able to function ... so part of that song, for me, is about the fact that I can make a living off of music. It's awesome how a couple of steps here and there — buying a guitar in 1991 and going to an open mic night later that year — blossomed into where I*m at now.

The Mountain Goats, part of Plan-It X Fest 2011, July 25-26, sold out, Rhino's All-Ages Club, 331 S. Walnut St., Bloomington, (812) 333-3430.