All Hail West Texas

I was listening to the radio and heard an intriguing song, "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton." It was by The Mountain Goats, a band I had never heard of before. "Band" is something of a misnomer, as very often the only person in The Mountain Goats is John Darnielle. After perusing Amazon for a while (The Mountain Goats are amazingly prolific) I figured out that the song was on a 2001 album called All Hail West Texas, and I have listened to it several times now.

Perhaps the most unusual thing about The Mountain Goats is that they (him) are lo-fi to the nth degree--Darnielle simply plays the guitar into a cassette recorder. There are extensive liner notes on the machine of choice for this CD--a Panasonic RX-FT500 that was thought to be broken. Before and after each song you can hear the wheels grinding. This effect, combined with Darnielle's stunning lyrics, give it a kind of undiscovered genius sound.

As one would imagine, the songs deal with that vast space known as West Texas. The songs deal with loneliness, heartache, and unfulfilled dreams, but also of endless opportunity. In "Jenny," the most hopeful of the songs, Darnielle sings about riding on the back of his girlfriend's Kawasaki motorcycle:

"And you pointed your headlamp toward the horizon
We were the one thing in the galaxy God didn't have his eyes on
900 cc's of raw, whining power, no outstanding warrants for my arrest
Hi diddle dee dee, goddamn, the pirate's life for me"

Each of the songs have a short story quality. "The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton" is about two boys who form a band but are told they will never amount to anything:

"When you punish a person for dreaming his dream
Don't expect him to thank or forgive you
The best ever death metal band out of Denton
Will in time both outpace and outlive you"


Another song covers the Texas mania for football in "Fall of the Star High School Running Back," where the titular character blows out his knee junior year and gets busted for selling acid to a cop. Another, "Jeff Davis County Blues," is about a guy just out of jail who rides the highways because he has nothing better to do. In a similar vein is "Source Decay," a magnificent song that features the line: "I wish the West Texas Highway was a mobius strip, I could ride it out forever."

The most poignant song to me was "The Mess Inside," about a couple who take vacations to try to improve their relationship. The refrain, sung by Darnielle with a plaintive tinge, is "I wanted you to love me like you used to do."

Musically, the album isn't any great shakes, as the tunes are fairly straightforward. All of the songs are solo guitar, except for the odd "Blues in Dallas," which I think was played on a Casio with one finger. It's the lyrics that compel one to listen to All Hail West Texas. I'm glad I discovered it.