Welcome to Night Vale - I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats: Episode 10, Jeff Davis County Blues

Episode Date: February 15, 2018

We’re checking back in with our most recent episode of I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats to share with you what the show has become. Thanks for listening! “Jeff Davis County Blues” is a song with a particular meaning to Joseph's life. Julian Koster of The Music Tapes and The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) joins to share his dream-inspired cover. Buy Julian Koster’s cover of “Jeff Davis County Blues” on iTunes, Bandcamp, or wherever you buy digital music. It supports both the artist and the show! Pre-order the full cover album on vinyl. I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats t-shirts and tote bags now available. Learn more about John Darnielle’s two novels here. Listen to more music by the Mountain Goats, including their latest album Goths, here. Check out Joseph Fink’s other shows, Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn’t Dead. His second novel with Jeffrey Cranor, It Devours!, is out now. Thanks to our sponsor Lincoln in the Bardo, published by Random House and available wherever books are sold! This episode was also sponsored by Bombfell, an easier way for men to get better clothes. Get 25% off your first order at bombfell.com/goats. Credits: Joseph Fink (host), John Darnielle (host), Christy Gressman (producer), Grant Stewart (editor), Vincent Cacchione (mixer), Rob Wilson (logo). Produced by Night Vale Presents in collaboration with Merge Records and the Mountain Goats. http://ionlylistentothemountaingoats.com http://www.nightvalepresents.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, Joseph Fink here. A few months ago, we shared the first episode of my new podcast. I only listened to The Mountain Goats. It was, I think, a very good episode, but it was also one where we were figuring a lot of stuff out, both within how we were doing the conversation and in how we edited it. And so I wanted to check in with you here with episode 10 of our podcast, our most recent episode, and one that I think better represents where this show ended up going. Enjoy.

This is the notebook that I took to Ireland on the... It was before Tallahassee was out, but the first time that we went out, Peter and I went over there. And then here's the original lyric to Riches and Wonders. Oh, wow. It has... I mean, seriously, this is what's really wild about some of the songs from Alice, Texas. I don't think there's a previous draft of that.

I think that's the amount of correction that went into it. You've got one line, no, one line crossed out, and then, like, one word crossed out. invent has been changed to I learned because I think I noticed I was going to need invent somewhere else. So there's that. And there's also the fact that though now I'm superstitious about pen colors and I won't write in blue or red. I will only write in black ink.

Interesting. And this was pretty clear back then. I was like, I don't care. Oh, wait. No, there must have been a previous draft. You know how you can tell? I am healthy, I am whole, et cetera. So there must have been a previous draft somewhere else.

I know there's a song that I never got written called You and Your Latin Jazz I like that one yeah I think this notebook went through a bunch of different iterations like it was at one point yeah then it becomes a then it becomes a sunsetry notebook it went through like this one was around for four albums and there's still a lot of blank paper in it it feels weird if I take one of these old notebooks and start writing new songs in it it feels bizarre even though it's just paper I hate writing longhand, and so all of my stuff, I have like, all of my old stuff, you can tell it's the

old stuff because it's in Word Perfect rather than Word. Wow. So I have like folders of Word perfect files. I learned how to type at seven. So basically I've been, as long as I've been writing, I've been writing on computer and it just, that's the only way I'm comfortable doing it. I learned how to type at 12 in summer school in Portland and it became the only way I wrote prose. and to this day I will very seldom write prose but songs have always been long I can't I can't imagine writing a song lyric on the laptop it's like that's when I'm typing it up

so that I'll be able to read it when I print it out but for the most part there's whole takes of my songs where it's like this is a good take oops I don't know what that says welcome to Mavis Beacon teaches the Mountain Goats a podcast about typing and the Mountain Goats I'm Joseph Fink and I only listen to The Mountain Goats.

This is the show where I talk with John Darniel, singer and songwriter of the band The Mountain Goats, about music, art, life, and anything else that comes up. This season, we are going song by song through John's 2002 album, All Hail West Texas. Today's song is Jeff Davis County Blues, which, as you'll hear, is a song with a particular meaning to my life. Later, we will hear a cover of the song recorded just for this podcast

by Julian Costa. but first, this episode was a tough one. It would have been tough even without the subject matter, which gets a little heavy, because this was the last episode recorded on my first trip down to Durham. We had spent three solid days sitting in John's basement recording. Imagine us. John cross-legged on an old mattress, me sitting in a small plastic folding chair, outside the sky broils.

Inside, we sweat and we talk. We're going to talk this episode about Jeff Davis County Blues. Jeff Davis County Blues, which is also Jefferson Davis County, I think. Yeah, it's the hyperbole that people often criticize younger people for engaging of calling everything the best. Lots of things are the best. Yeah. It's the best for that moment. Yeah, and it's the best in some way that the other thing isn't the best. So it's always hard to pick a very favorite one, but I've been saying riches and wonders,

you know, that's maybe the best written song on the album. As far as the lyric goes, it's really, you know, it's very measured. but Jeff Davis, I think it was like, it's a step up. Jeff Davis County Blues has a kind of a maturity to the resolve where I'm not asking for attention. I mean, it's like, whereas best every gentleman Ben and Denton pretty much punches you in the nose telling you, I bet you can't not pay attention to a guy yelling, hail Satan.

And even if you missed the whole story, I told, I bet you're going to hear me now, right? And that's punk energy, which I like. And, you know, but I also am more drawn to, in part because, my natural tendency is to jump up and down and yell, and I enjoy it, you know. But I'm always wanting to try and find other ways to, you know, to leave an impression. Yeah. This has similar to riches and wonders.

It has an over a minute, over a minute long instrumental out. Yeah. When I talk about maturity in songwriting, I consider like the ability for the singer to shut up and stay out of the way of some nice chords. That to me is maturity, right? Whereas I didn't use to have that because I couldn't play the chords that nice. And there's an A7 in here, an A minor 7, that keeps coming in. I'm pretty sure this is the first song I ever wrote the head of an A minor 7 in it. And it's nice.

It deserves to have some space. I just love the idea of someone being like, listen to this A minor seven. Here it is. You know, it's interesting because this song really good. So this is maybe the most specific to, you said that, that this album came out of driving through West Texas. Yeah, yeah. And this is maybe the most specific to driving through West Texas to the point where it's basically giving directions.

Yeah, no, it's a highway map. It's a drive you can go do if you so desire. So there's a, someone has created a Google map. Shout out to that person. Thanks for doing that because I looked at it. You have a name, presumably. And it's really interesting, they mapped out on Google this route. Yeah.

And what's fascinating is it's a super long route, and it feels, long when you're saying it in this song and it feels long, I think it is a lot of hours, but it's what you're saying about West Texas. It is when you see it against the state of Texas, this entire song is maybe 5% of the width of the state. Yeah, no, you're not even, you can drive, you could do this thing and it would take you a while and you wouldn't have seen much of Texas. So the entire drive, according to this Google map that, who created it? Oh, sorry, I already clicked away. Thank you again, though. Thank you, person, doomed to anonymity.

It is a five-hour drive. Here is what it looks like against the state of Texas. Yeah, so it's just basically it's a very small upside-down V in the middle of its... Where's the border? Oh, it's right there, yeah. Yeah, you don't go far into New Mexico on this drive. You just go very briefly into it. Let me hit back.

Zachary Eldridge is our dude. Thank you. Zachary Eldridge. We appreciate it. What's up? So it's a five-hour drive. is how long it would take to do once. But he turns around, right?

He would take, there's probably an extra 20 minutes for the turnaround because he's going to keep going. Yeah. And he decides to go to Midland. But yeah, there's something about that impression that going through Texas leaves on you. It's like you go, it's a place that can teach you about your own ignorance because a lot of people, especially people who've never been to the South at all, they think they know something about Texas. And they may know something about Texas. But there's a lot of Texas to know.

and that's instructive, right? Because that's true of every place. Texas happens to be a good place to learn it. Yeah. It's like, no matter what you think you know about, and let's take a place that people have a lot of stereotypes about, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, right? Which became a popular place to move to circa 2000-ish.

I spent five years living in Williamsburg. Yeah. And there were probably a lot of people your age who had moved there around the same time, and it was exciting, and now people dismiss it in a way that everybody, absolutely everybody has taken part in dismissing Williamsburg, as Hipsterville or whatever, but there's a lot to know about Williamsburg, actually. We took a bad Uber driver, no, a lift driver. Bad lift driver through there a couple weeks ago or something.

I saw all kinds of blocks I had never walked down at all because there's no clubs there and there and there's no restaurants that I know there. And I was seeing all kinds of people, mainly Hasidim, right, that I never see. Oh, yeah, if you go south from Williamsburg. Yeah. Well, that's Williamsburg too. Yeah, you get into the neighborhoods where. there are no signs in English.

Yeah. The thing is, I think I told you, if I didn't tell you, one thing I almost did when I was studying Hebrew at Pomona when I was going to Pitzer, but I was saying Hebrew and I was in classical studies and I was really getting pretty into, you know, tradition of Hebrew scholarship and stuff. I was looking at the postings for summer stuff and there was a Yiddish library thing in, I want to say it was Massachusetts. where they had like this vast repository of Yiddish books that needed to be cataloged.

And they said it was a great gig. The one thing is there's no air conditioning in the warehouse where you're going to do this and it's July. Oh, God. And I knew I had never spent any time on the East Coast and I was like, I bet it's unlivable among all those books. So I didn't apply for the Yiddish book scholarship. I don't think. If I did, I didn't get it. But I sort of, you know, when I was thinking about doing it, I looked up in the whole tradition of Yiddish literature.

So, I mean, like, it's something you would feel utterly justified and going, that's going to be my area. That's all I'm going to study, you know. And so, yeah, when I go through that part of Williamsburg, I just have this, I'm dazzled. I know so little. I'm ignorant, you know. And there's a sort of, for me, anything I'm ignorant of, I grow intensely curious about. Yeah, I have, I think, a different reaction to the Hasid community. Well, yeah, of course.

Because, yeah, as a reformed Jew and like a liberal Jew, to me, the Hossites make me kind of angry. Sure, but remember also the tradition that they come out of, whether whatever they are in practice, it's an ecstatic tradition. Yeah, they were the radical ones, but they were the radical ones in the mid-19th century. Yeah, it's a thing where it's like I get to hate the Hossates because I'm not hating them because they're Jewish. I'm hating them because of the way they treat women and the way they treat other people and it's the sibling. I only think of them in scriptural terms,

not cultural terms. Yeah, it's the sibling anger that you get to have because you're close to them in some way. No, I mean, like, you know, at core, here's the thing. I saw a filler on the roof when I was when I was five, and to this day, I identify with Reptevia. It's like, I want, when he waxes about how great it would be to just read scriptural day.

He doesn't even mean it, right? He says that, but he actually likes it. life the way it is, you know. But I'm the same way. I think, oh, what if I was a guy? Just reading the Bible all day. That would be great. It'd be great if you were a guy.

If you're a woman, you don't get to do shit in those communities. Oh, man. So I wanted to talk, you know, the last episode we talked about how places. You want to cut all of that unless we want to go. I mean, I am completely comfortable with my dislike of Hossides. Because, again, it has nothing to do with the fact that they're Jewish. Yeah, no, totally. It has to do with the fact that I'm Jewish.

That's a good line Yeah So this last episode We talked about How places can become tied up In who you were when you went to those places And it's exactly the same with songs And this is a song that just happened to get tangled up

In a point in my life Right And you were in New York I was in New York So we've talked about this That when the mountain goats went from a and I liked to a band that was kind of tied into my life was when my father died. Oh, yeah.

It was in 2011. Right. He had had a heart condition for seven years or so beforehand. We knew he was going to die. We just didn't know when. And so it was this very long, drawn-out process. I went through, like, summers where I couldn't function because of the anxiety. Man.

And then... I know what you mean. It's the thing, when you summarize it in that one sentence, it's easy to just walk right past that. I went through a period where I was too anxious to really move. Anyway, I always want to respect those moments when you pass them and go like, yeah, no, I hear you. It's like when I talk about my crying well-awake period, that was real. That was like, you know, I would try and keep it together until my wife left for work just to not bum her out, you know. And then I would go.

I mean, it's one of the things that really bonded my wife and I powerfully is she and I started dating the summer. I stopped functioning because of anxiety. Wow. She started dating me right before that happened. So it was this great thing where she started dating me and then I stopped functioning. Yeah. Good new boyfriend. So around my wrist, I have a piece of baker's string.

Right. She has one too. We have friendship bracelets. Awesome. I don't actually wear a wedding ring because I really hate wearing jewelry. It bothers me. But I've worn this baker string or we switch it out about once every six months. Oh, wow.

For how long have Megan I've been together almost eight years? Over eight years. Oh, God. And so because it was 2009, yeah, eight years. So it was really early on, and I was living in New York. She was living in New Jersey, and I had this point where I couldn't get out of bed. I was so anxious. And she came, and she brought me chocolate-covered strawberries in a bakery box.

And then we made friendship bracelets from the bakery string around the bakery box, and I've worn this around my wrist ever since to remind me of that moment. Anyway, so that summer, it was an interesting one because, yeah, I couldn't function, but it was also the start of our relationship. And so do you now when you, like if you get, if anxiety starts to settle in and you feel like maybe your functionality is decreasing, you go, something good's about to happen? I've had, so I had that wave and then I had another wave after my father died where, again, I couldn't function for a little bit. And then I started writing night fail. And since night fail has started, a lot of my anxiety has not gone.

away at all, but it has become extremely manageable because I just, I just started putting all of my anxiety into Nightfail. Like, Nightfail is a very, all of the stuff about death and about uncertainty. That's all me just taking all the anxiety that was building up and putting it into this work instead. Spitting straw into gold. So it didn't have to live inside of me anymore. Yeah, I know that's, that's the lead into gold phenomenon is that, uh, that's what that is. It's, it's, uh, I've talked with my therapist about how, you know, some of these songs, we, go, well, that was a terrible thing to have lived through, but look what came out of that? That's nice. Yeah. So my father, so he had a relatively minor surgery, and it went completely wrong.

Oh, sorry. And he died, but then came back kind of thing where they got him out and they drove him to Cedar Sinai. And so I flew back from New York and we just spent a week with him at Cedar Sinai in the ICU. And it's always really weird because Nightville has done a bunch of stuff at the Largo, which is literally around the corner from Cedar Sinai. And Largo is a very exciting place. It's, you know, I've had a lot of really amazing career moments. Some of the first Nightville shows were at the Largo. It is literally around the corner from the room that my father died in.

So we had this week with him. And I really take that as a gift in that he very easily could have died that first night. Instead, we had this week in which we could say goodbye. We didn't know necessarily we were saying goodbye. We thought he was going to get a heart transplant. And then it just didn't happen. But we spent that week singing because, again, he was a musician, and we had always sung together as a family.

We sung a lot of different stuff. You know, we sung a lot of the stuff. You know, he was very into a lot of different music. Who is the guy, I cannot believe, I've forgotten his name, Dying Cubs fans' Last Request? Oh, I don't know that guy's name. I know the song, but nobody remembers that guy's name. Come on.

That's not even my favorite song by him. He was great. Steve Goodman. Oh, yeah, yeah. He wrote all sorts of great stuff. He's not that well known. Yeah, my dad really liked him. So I listened to a lot of his stuff.

We sang his stuff. But we also sang, you know, we sang this year and we sang, I was telling you this a couple days ago. We sang never quite free. Yeah. But I, without telling him, rewrote the end of the verses to make them happy because I needed him to be singing a happy song. And it's just, you know, it just became tied to that. music came tied to that moment, which...

Craig Finn has that line. Certain songs get scratched into our salt. Yeah, exactly. And it has nothing to do necessarily. Again, never quite free had nothing to do with that moment. But it became a very different meaning. Very soon after that, so I came back to New York. I was trying to figure things out.

Six months later, I would start writing Night Vale, which it wasn't until years later that I realized that was in direct reaction to the grief. Like, that was me processing grief. It didn't occur to me until probably three years after it started. It's an insightful thing about grief that it's weird. Yeah. It's not the first thing people say about it. Yeah, it's, you don't even know what you're, I don't think you realize how you're

processing it until you have a lot of distance to see what you were doing. I went, you played Music Hall of Williamsburg, and I went to see it. I actually didn't know, I'm not 100% sure why I didn't know it. I didn't know that song that well. Right. It's just not a song I listened too much. And you were playing it and. I did it solo.

It was in the middle of the set. That sounds right. I remember it being solo. So you started playing Jeff Davis County Blues, and you got to the line about old sunset magazines. Old issues of sunset magazines. Yes. And my dad was an avid subscriber to Sunset magazine. And it was always around a room.

When I was flying back to New York, we were there for the funeral and all of that. It happens pretty quickly when you're Jewish. You do kind of do it right away, so we stayed for the funeral. And then I was just grabbing some stuff to read on the plane. And so I just grabbed a couple issues of Sunset Magazine. And I opened up, my dad was an avid gardener. He, he gardened all the time. We had a fairly complex garden.

And so he worked from home, so he'd spend a lot of his day doing that. And all through that, it was the latest issue of Sunset Magazine, and it came out the month he died. And there was all these notes he had written about gardening ideas he wanted to try. He had, like, circled a type of planting method that he wanted to try out. And there was all this stuff, this handwriting from my... dad in this issue of Sonset Magazine. So yeah, the song that brought up these old issues of Sonset Magazine and this idea of dreaming of home.

Yeah. And different ideas of home. Yeah. And it became a song about my dad. And so it's this weird thing where forever this will be a song about my dad, even though nothing in the lyrics supports that. It's not a song about someone missing somebody who died, I don't think. And it's not a song about grief necessarily.

but it is 100% those things for me. There's a big loss in that song though. It's one of, like I say, it's one of the more mature songs in part because it doesn't need an object of romantic affection or even a definable object.

It's like it's actually focusing on the feeling. Most of us don't focus on feelings at that level very often. When we feel, if you say you're angry, I might ask you who you're angry at. Well, that's kind of a very dim understanding of anger. And sure, you're angry at people or injustice or whatever, you know.

But to sit with the anger and have that be the feeling instead of be focused on it, that's where the song is at. But with absence and grief, you know, he's looking at something, some pictures, you know. Well, it doesn't really matter what's in the pictures. We know that they're pictures of something. And that their pictures is only means that whatever's on them, you're not with that right now. Right. And so it's a, it's a song of solitude and of like of the, you know, solitude isn't just when you're by yourself. Solitude is also when stuff is missing from you. So yeah, fond of that song. After three nights in jail, I head north from Toyavail. Switch to 285 in Pecos, head up to Red Bluff. My walks real steady and my eyes are real. But I feel like I'm all 16 years old

Lost in a travel lodge with a television on with the sound down I don't feel so tough Old issues a sunset magazine To read sleep for 12 hours Dream about home Fix my eyes and ain't blind And I panic I guess And although it's quite late

late, take the first exit to 128. I am to Midland, and I hope you won't mind. Scattered on the passenger seat, I drive slowly and evenly, and I dream about home. You've talked about, you know, people, and I absolutely did this when I read, I emailed you about my dad dying. No, I totally remember. There's something about you. People want to bring their trauma to you. And I think it's because so much of her music is about not even,

not even like, here's some ways to get through trauma, but just that it's okay to have trauma. Yeah, no, that's, I mean, that's to be able to sit with your stuff. Yeah. You know, whatever your damage is, whatever your trauma is, whatever your issues are, to have a space where you can sit with that and come to understand that however much of it is, you're still there. It doesn't actually have a knife in its hand.

It actually can't assault you. It just feels funky, you know. But yeah, that's what music is for me in a lot of ways. The music I listen to, I think about during that same period, I was listening to Nothing is Beyond You by Rich Mullins in the version by Amy Grant. And that song was not written for people to suffer with, but it was that for me. You know, it was like, it was a way of situating myself in the vastness of the, the universe and and yeah it's a you know there's a more you know a simpler way of looking at it which is

like you can talk a lot about the nature of your experiences with music but music is sacred it really is it's like when when you've gone that place with something you know whether it's amy grant or kitty tussler christine fellows or whoever you know nothing you say about it will ever be adequate to what happened when some piece of work helped liberate you from something You know, it's like, that's, it's indescribable. Thank you for sharing that. That's amazing. Yeah.

I'm, I also, I was like, I, I'm going to be bringing some trauma to unload on you. And I apologize for that. No, no, no, no, no, look, I say this a lot and I always am wanting to say it in a way that it's hard to, I'm always trying to hit the right tone here. When people want to share their trauma with me, it is an honor. It can be, like in the signing line or something, it can be, it can be a lot, you know, it's like, I'm not a therapist. That's the thing is there's nothing I can say. When somebody shares a trauma with, if you share it with somebody whose job it is to do therapy, they know how to shepherd you through that, right?

I don't. I don't. I make the thing that seems to actually in some way by itself know how to help with that. But I personally, I don't know what to say except thanks and it's an honor, you know. But it really is a profound honor, especially because music has, how many times has music been the thing for me? standing, you know, standing at the abyss saying it's not really an abyss. So you can go in there. You can go there because you'll come back.

Yeah, we occasionally get, you know, people. Often, you know, it's people that are trying, they're in high school and they're trying to come out and Night Vale helped them with that. And I try to think about this, that it's like, what I usually respond to them with is I'm just so glad that this could be useful to you. Yeah. In the way that other art has been useful to me. Do you know the song To Be of Use by Bill Callahan, and we talked about this? I know. I'll look up the lyrics and read it to you and you will think from the opening lyrics, you'll see,

why are you reading this one? But we'll get there. It's remarkable. It's expressing exactly what we're talking about. Most of my fantasies are of making someone else come. Most of my fantasies are of to be of use, to be of some hard, simple, undeniable use. like a spindle, like a candle, like a horseshoe, like a corkscrew, to be of use, to be of use.

Most of my fantasies are of making someone else come on a horse over palms laid on the threshold of the coming day. Coming day. And Bill is like, Bill is so, is one of the greatest we have ever. And it's actually, we were talking about the songs you're with, He had one, I think my lowest point ever, I was listening to a song by him called Too Many Birds. And I just couldn't get away from it. And it was one of those things where it was like, it can take you all the way down to the bottom and show you that the bottom is not a place that has to hold you.

Yeah. That other people have gone there and come back. Yeah, that it's a real place. And like in the other place, you can breathe there. It's not outer space. It's like, so yeah. Julian Koster is a member of The Music Tapes and Neutral Milk Hotel. He also creates surreal and beautiful audio fiction,

including the podcast, The Orbiting Human Circus of the Air, that takes place in a ballroom at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Julian approached the task of covering the mountain goats unlike any other guest on this season. But before we get to that, let's talk about how Julian and John met. We psychically found each other in London at a Harry Kushner Cafe. Yeah, it was wild because I was on my honeymoon, and that was during Neutral Milk's tour. They just stayed on tour for so long, because I had seen them a little in San Francisco like a week before, right? And that was when I was on tour heading down to my wedding, and then I got married.

And then we flew to England like a week and a half later, and there was Neutral Milk Hotel at Govindez in, I can't quite remember the name of the neighborhood. It's like a very populated neighborhood. But yeah, I always used to seek out the Krishna restaurants. But I think, Julian, did we discuss this? Were you on the 94 neutral milk hotel tour that played Cup of J in Pomona? I don't remember the Cup of J. But I think, as we were saying, I don't really remember a lot of stuff from the 90s. But I do remember finding you in London because we'd been, yeah, we'd been in California.

We had been playing out of it. There was a Terrostock Festival, which was an amazing festival. And then we had flown out to London, and we were starving, and we were trying to find vegetarian food in London, which was, this was before I knew that there was, we knew there was a thousand Indian restaurants every 10 feet in London. And so somebody was like, oh, there's this Krishna restaurant, which we sort of knew the Krishna stuff because they would set up free food on college campuses and stuff, which we were all pretty addicted to because they would, you know, they'd give you free food and it was really nice.

So we went stumbling through London. We were all jet lagged and we found the place and standing like right in front of it was John, whom we just left in San Francisco. So we were all very, very confused. And I remember you were incredibly energetic. You were, well, obviously, you must have been, you were on your honeymoon. So you were, you looked... Well, plus me, me prior to 2003 or so, had a really a huge amount of adrenaline.

You know how a lot of people were really bummed when they started to get a little older, and I was very relieved. Oh, yeah. Because the amount of just free energy I had floating around at any given time back in those days was pretty scorching. That's true. It's exactly how I remember you. That's so funny. I remember you being, you were kind of like a squirrel.

No, exactly. It was an incandescent energy. I mean, the thing is like, I can't complain. about it because it totally like, you know, that's what people found entertaining on stage. It was like, I would sort of sit there and I looked kind of like the sun, you know, but, but, but yeah, I was, I was a little relieved when a little of that started to ebb because it was a lot. Yeah, yeah, it's so funny. I hadn't thought about that because, you know, I haven't really seen you since then, but that's, that was your, yeah, and I always saw, I feel like every time I saw you,

I was either jet lagged or, or I'd just like woken up or something, and I was just like, oh, I couldn't even keep up. But, but, but, and now, so here's the interesting thing, though, because we've, so we found you in front of this Krishna restaurant, like bouncing off the walls, um, even more so with happiness because you were on your honeymoon. And, um, and we were all jet lagged and, and just half out of our minds. But then it turns out you were actually a Harry Krishna at that moment. Yeah, I was practicing.

I wasn't like, uh, in, in Iskhan, uh, there's these four regulations you're supposed to follow. and I really only ever followed the vegetarianism. Like, you're supposed to chant 16 rounds a day. That takes three or four hours to chant 16 rounds of the Mahamantra on beads. I think I only ever chanted a full 16 rounds a couple times. I chanted every day. But 16 rounds, I mean, you're supposed to wake up at like three or four in the morning to get your rounds started, and I couldn't do that back then.

If I started up again now, I have a better chance because I sleep a lot less. But yeah, so these four regs that you're supposed to follow that I didn't follow. But I did keep deities, and I still have them actually, but I don't offer my food to them anymore. Okay, so you were just doing the vegetarian. So we were actually one quarter, Harry Krishna, at that point, because we were doing the vegetarian thing. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if it works out. It probably doesn't work that way, though, right?

Well, no, the thing is, so there's a teaching in the religion that says that even the smallest amount of service counts, right? it's one of the most gentle teachings that if you, I mean, one thing I always liked about it, there was that, you know, in 20th century Christianity or revival Christianity, it's all about what you mean, right? It's how do you feel in your heart is what counts. But according to Shula Prabupad, it's not about what you mean, it's about what you do, right? So if you chant Hari Krishna, it's not about whether you're feeling it or not. It's about whether you do it, Right. And I always thought that was kind of cool. It's less about your feelings than it is about your actions. So yeah, so even eating at a Govindez, you get a little bit of benefit is the teaching. I mean, as I say, I don't really follow it anymore, although I still, every time I look over at my bookshelves, it's like I have all my Iscon books from back then. And like, well, I don't really read them anymore, but it would be, it would feel funny to get rid of them. We were talking a few episodes ago with Craig Finn about that approach to religion.

It's the one that makes the most sense to me, having been raised Jewish, that to me, religion is a thing you do. And what you think about that thing or believe about that thing is kind of irrelevant. So I have a hard time wrapping my head around a lot of faith-based religions. But a religion where it's a set of practices and those practices become your life and that life becomes a religion. that totally makes sense. I think the older religion is, the more likely it is to follow that precept, is what I think. I think eventually religion becomes a collection of behaviors and that younger religions, like Christianity, tend to be about your feelings. You know, and then I think as Christianity, Christianity ages and grows, it will become, I think it's like, so the Catholic Church grows out of older traditions, so it immediately goes, look, no one cares how you feel.

I care if you pray the rosary and show up at church. And so, but the Protestant moment coincides with the Enlightenment and all that kind of stuff where man becomes a center of the universe. Catastrophe, of course, for humankind, right? Do you think that's, do you think religions become more or less forgiving as they get old? Much more. Yeah, I agree. I mean, because they mature, because we know this in miniature, in your own life, that as a person, as you grow, you become more forgiving and more able to see other people's side of things. and less likely to say of somebody who messes up, you know, well, you're off my list now.

You know, it's like you stop doing that. Whereas when you're younger, you're more likely to go, well, you fucked up and you're fucked up for good. I can't be your friend anymore. You know, and as you grow, you stop doing that. And I think religions are, you know, are people too, in a sense. They're just a bigger expression so it takes longer for them to reach that phase. There's a nice story by, I think it's by Isaac Deniz.

I think there's about a, there's an abbey. Is that how you say that word, ABBE? Is it Abby? I think so. I've only ever seen it written, so I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's one of those things. Well, so he's on a, he's on a ship on a voyage in the middle of the ocean. And there's this island that some of the sailors are getting sort of excited about passing

because there are these three hermits who live on the island, they're brothers. And they've been there apparently forever. The abbey can't quite make sense of the stories because all the sailors, tell these stories that seem impossible about how long they've been there. And the abbey wants to go see them. And they're kind of religious ascetics. They actually just sit on that island and pray. And they seem incredibly old, and he doesn't even understand how they eat or anything.

And the abbey, but they're praying all wrong. They don't actually know any proper prayers. And so he sort of teaches them. And he teaches them one of the kind of main proper prayers that you say, and he gives them, I think, rosaries. And then he goes off on the ship, and he leaves them behind. And about half a day out in the middle of the ocean, suddenly they see this crazy light approaching the ship, and the light gets closer and closer in the abbeys on the deck.

And it's the three brothers, and they're running on the water. and they get closer and closer and they run up onto the deck of the ship and they're out of breath and they grab the abbey and they say abbey you have to come back we we tried but we forgot that prayer you taught us and that's the story you know it's weird julian is a good story i think it's probably earlier in this season um since we're recording out of order i'm not sure exactly where but i told us a jewish story that is very similar to that where it's a rabbi except for in that one it's uh the rabbi tries to teach someone how to pray, and later he finds out that God considers this person's prayers, the most valuable prayers in the world. And he goes back to find out how the person has been praying. And the person explains that they immediately forgot the prayers, but they've just been saying the alphabet, assuming that God will figure out how to put it into the correct order. I love that one. And now I must, I have to share my homily joke, the one that I remember a priest telling way back when that I'm very fond of because I remember when I first heard it, I was like

a teenager and I thought, oh, that's corny, man. That's really corny as hell. And then as I grow, I remember it, I go, no, that's actually a really good story. It's like really, it's not as funny. Like, it gets nervous laughter from the congregation. You know, as a joke, it's not a great joke. But as a story about God, it's totally excellent. So here it is. This is a legendary one. You've probably heard it before. A town is going to flood. The rain is coming and the river is rising. And the mayor goes on TV and the radio and says, hey, it's going to flood. Everybody needs to evacuate the town.

And most everybody starts to evacuate, but a very pious man in town says, you know, I'm going to stay here. I trust God to rescue me. And the water comes and it begins to rise. And a rescue team comes by in a boat to the house and says, hey, we know you're still in there. come out, come out and save yourself. And the guy says, no, I'm trusting in God. God will save me. Well, okay, and the boat goes away, and the water rises, and the guy gets up on his roof,

and he's sitting there, and a helicopter comes by, and they sit down through a megaphone. Hey, you have to evacuate, you're going to drown. And the guy says, I put my faith in God. I don't need a helicopter or anybody. And so the helicopter leaves, and the waters rise, and the man drowns. And at the pearly gates, he's let in, and he says, look, I demand an audience with God. God has betrayed and failed me. And they said, okay, well, God's right over there.

And he goes up and he says, Lord, I put my faith in you and you did not rescue me. You know, I remained faithful to the very end and you let me die. And God says, you know, I sent you the mayor. I sent you a motorboat. I sent you a helicopter. I always think that's a very profound one because it is actually true. That everybody looks for God to speak for the burning bush.

But actually, God is the guy you run into who gives you good advice. Yeah. Do you guys know the flip side of John's story, the one about the guy looking for the parking space? No. All right, so this guy is driving. He's been driving in New York City and looking for a parking space on the Upper West Side for like, and it's been three hours. And he's just beside himself. He's going to miss what he's, what he's there to see. He was there to see. He had theater tickets. And he just says, God, if you give me a parking place, I will stop smoking. I will never. look at another woman again other than my wife. I will start eating properly, and I will pray and go to church every Sunday. Oh, I see you on. Never mind. The thing is, I was made for church jokes. I love these jokes. These are my favorites. So Julian, you know, in the earlier part of this

episode, the part that you weren't around for, we were talking about how music becomes, once it's written in and it's out there, it kind of, the musician no longer has quite control over it, and it becomes something that belongs to each person that listened to it. And for instance, this song, even though nothing in the lyrics, is really about this, it became very much a song about my father's death. And your cover is, I think, very much an illustration of this, because it's, I think, about as far from a straightforward cover as we have in this. season. And it came, the process of arranging it this way came to you through a dream, right? Yeah, it came from a dream. It was a dream. I should preface this by saying that I'm incredibly

conscious of music and dreams. I often wake myself up if I hear music and a dream because I try to go record it, sing it into a tape recorder or something. So I was having this dream, and I also remember these dreams really well because I do that. And in the dream I was in a city, but it wasn't New York City where I live. It was, and I was holding, I had a bag, a plastic bag full of water with a goldfish in it. Like you get when you're a little kid, I actually got one when I was at school, I think, like in first grade or kindergarten or something. It was definitely this feeling of when I was a child. I remember, and it was very much the same in the dream.

It was this kind of precious feeling. it was, you know, it was maybe a small fishbowls amount of water, but it, again, it was just like in a plastic bag that was, like, tied off at the top or something, and there's this little fish swimming around in it, and I'm holding its entire universe in my hands, and I had to walk home when I was a kid, and in this dream, I was walking, like I said, in some city, and, and so I was kind of holding it up in front of my face, and I'm watching the fish, which is sort of like watching the big fish swim around the city, you know, it was sort of, it's sort of amplified, and, you know, people are banging into each other in cities,

and there's a lot of walking and a lot of cars. And so that part of the dream was very scary because I was essentially just trying to protect the fish. But then I was at a party, which is, I don't know how that happened, but that's how, you know, dreams are. And it was this cocktail party, and everybody was incredibly well-dressed, and it was very fancy. And I didn't have the fish anymore,

but I remembered the fish. And also, this parties are really scary for me because I'm not great, I'm terrible socially, especially a party is that kind of a social situation. And this is full of incredibly fancy people. But the thing was that I'd realized that I didn't have the goldfish because I'd put it down on this bed. It was in this bed where people were throwing their jackets, and I suddenly realized like someone could throw their jacket on top of it and hurt the fish. And I was feeling incredibly anxious, but for some reason I couldn't go back to the bedroom or I didn't know where the bedroom was.

I couldn't find it. But this song was playing meanwhile, and everybody was really into this music. And it was this kind of very strange, spacey, crazy music. And it actually started calming me down, listening to it, and comforting me. And also just interesting me. And I think around that time was when it sort of kicked in the music alarm. And my brain went off. I was like, music, dream, you're dreaming.

And so I woke up. And I went and I sang it into my cassette recorder. And then I think it wasn't until the next day that I was listening. to it, and I remembered it. I remembered, you know, because it was really distinct. It was crazy. It was a crazy record, like an old record. And I suddenly listened to the melody, and I was like, oh, my God, it's John's song. It's that song. And I, yeah, and so I just, the cover was done, basically. Like, I knew that was, it was like, okay, that's what I have to do is just recreate that, but it was already done. Can I say if there was a podcast called Julian's Dreams, I would listen

to it. I would just do it every week. I would be a subscriber and I would support your Patreon. Oh, thank you. I have good news. There's a podcast called Orbiting Human Circus. You should give it a listen. It's I think as close to that as I said.

That's probably pretty true. We better get a Patreon then. There's something about that, you know, about looking at a thing going, let my mind approach this before my conscious mind gets at it, you know? And something about when your cover results. resolves into the melody, which is so, you know, it's a way of hearing. Because I think, you know, if you ever listen to music where you're going to sleep, the last thing you hear before you drift off is kind of the truest encounter with the music in some ways, I think.

Yeah, yeah. Thinking about stories or music at that moment when you're almost asleep, that's, yeah, that's really, really, really magical. I love, have you ever begun to realize? that you're beginning to hallucinate or that you're beginning to dream. I mean, in a funny, dreaming and hallucination are essentially the same thing. And it's so wonderful. It's so wonderful to be conscious that it's happening and it's okay and you're just falling into it. And that's exactly what you want to do.

It's such a nice moment. Yeah, it's very intense one that happens with dreams where you go, oh, oh, I'm getting to be present for a little of this before conscious me slips away. It's really incredible. cover by Julian. You can buy it wherever digital music is sold. The money from that track goes directly to both the artist and this show, and we really appreciate it. The full album of every cover from this season is available for digital and vinyl pre-order in the Merge Records store. The special release will be two LPs, one pink and one blue. Link in the show notes. Head over to

I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats.com to see the logo shirt, plus the logo toot, and of course the I Only Listen to Podcasts about the Mountain Goat. shirt, available nowhere else. Check out the newest album from the Mountain Goats, Goths, which is out now. John Darniel also writes novels like Universal Harvester, a book that the LA Times called Nearly Impossible to Stop Reading. Over on the Welcome to Nightville podcast, we just started a new three-part story that is one of my favorite things I've written. It's basically a standalone, so go ahead and check it out. It starts at episode 121. I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats is a production of Nightville Presents with Merge Records.

It is produced by Christy Gressman, editing by Grant Stewart, mixing by Vincent Cashione. All music courtesy of the Mountain Goats and Merge Records. Thank you to Christina Rents, Ryan Madison, the D'Art Neal family for letting me intrude on their lives, Julian Koster, the staff of Nightville Presents, and Christy Gressman. Hello from the complete other side of the world, Christy. Check out Nightville Presents for more information about this show and all of our other shows, like Welcome to Nightvale, a scripted fiction podcast about a small desert town where every conspiracy theory is true. We've been telling stories about this little community for almost six years now. We just bopped over the 200 million download mark last year,

and I invite you to jump in and meet the citizens of our town. We have a helpful starters guide on our website, with some suggestions of episodes to try. Come find out why people love these weird stories. And remember, the bottom is not a place that has to hold you. Thanks for listening, inhale Satan.