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)
the Mountain Goats – Counting Songs For Bitter Children
one, two, two and a half Stick around here, don’t make me laugh Two and a half, three, four point five A new day’s dawning and my hours arrive
I don’t even know what to say about this song. It took me more than an hour to track down because, as far as I’m aware, this is the only recording in existence and it was uploaded by JD to sendspace four years ago and posted on the mountain-goats.com forum, where sharing is, uh, a complicated business. I think it’s a shame to let a gem like this disappear, though, so here it is.
I’m gonna get myself in fighting trim Scope out every angle of unfair advantage I’m gonna bribe the officials I’m gonna kill all the judges It’s gonna take you people years To recover from all of the damage
Our mother has been absent Ever since we founded Rome But there’s gonna be a party when the wolf comes home
If you play This Year by The Mountain Goats at exactly 11:58:51 on New Years Eve, “I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me” will play at exactly midnight. start off your year right 🙂
The rain came and washed the new potatoes away We saw them floating across the backyard There they go We’ll never see them again, you know So goodbye to the new potatoes Goodbye and godspeed
There they go We will never see them again you know So goodbye to the new potatoes Goodbye Goodbye
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