the perfect mountain goats song to listen to when:

aprilwitching:

You’re Going To Die And That Is Bittersweet But Ultimately Okay: Love, Love, Love (general), White Cedar (if it’s at an indeterminate time in the future but you look forward to being released from your strange human flesh prison, beautiful as the world occasionally can be), The Coroner’s Gambit (if it’s imminent and your feelings are a little more conflicted and regretful)

You’re Going To Die Imminently And You’re Actually Kind Of Psyched/Jubilant About It: Heretic Pride (if you’re being burned at the stake by an angry mob), Water Song (if you’re sacrificing yourself for a loved one, and also you have an existentialist streak, and also you’re standing under a really leaky roof), The Day The Aliens Came (if the reason is that it is literally the end of the world, and good riddance in your opinion)

You Have Spent Long Enough Being Dead (Or Wishing You Were Dead) And Now It’s Time To Make a Comeback: The Mummy’s Hand (if you’re into horror movie monsters or feel like you can relate to them), Psalms 40: 2 (if you’re a lapsed Christian who has just had a numinous experience while huffing paint in an abandoned church)

You Are Terrified, Clinging To Life And Hope By The Skin Of Your Teeth, And You Could Really Use Some Encouragement In Song Form: Spent Gladiator One (if you need to feel okay about your bizarre risk-taking behaviors), Romans 10: 9 (if you’re sick and traumatized and you just need to keep living day by day until things get better— and you want to believe that they will), This Year (if you’re a teenager with an abusive/dysfunctional family)

The People Around You All Seem To Be In Bleak And Dire Straits, And That Concerns You At Least As Much As Your Personal Situation:  Hebrews 11: 40 (if you are quietly determined to save/help/protect them no matter what it takes), Steal Smoked Fish (if you love everyone but are also resigned to/detached from the situation enough that you can sing the line “feels so good to have you here/some of you will be dead next year” pretty cheerfully), Color In Your Cheeks (if you want to invite every single down and out human being on the planet over to your house for coffee/booze and you haven’t slept for quite some time but you’re feeling pretty good anyway)