If you’re anything like me, Valentine’s Day causes you an entire world of anxiety whether you’re in a relationship or not. And also, you’re not. You may try and cure that anxiety by saying “Hey, why don’t I calm down and listen to American indie band, The Mountain Goats?”
Well, you’re almost guaranteed to end up sipping whiskey out of a coffee cup and staring out your kitchen window, but if you insist, please heed my extensive research and at least avoid the following five songs:
1) Woke Up New
I love a good cry, and this heartwarming song about learning to move on from past loves and grow is a classic written by John “I Am The Mountain GOAT” Darnielle. His dulcet yet melancholy tones always lift me up as he emphasizes that it is good and healthy for some relationships to end. Then he drops me flat on my sobbing face by reminding me how alone I am. Completely, utterly, alone.
2) Love, Love, Love
I first heard this song while going through my break up with Alexandra in 2010. Much like the song, we were in love, love, love. And just like the song, some things last forever, and some flare out with me sobbing in a grocery store parking lot staring at the horizon wondering why I feel incomplete. This track drives home emotions of love, life, death, and recovery. But mostly death, because John “I Am A Poet Who Needs Your Pain” Darnielle feeds off of our collective misery.
3) Animal Mask
This song is off of “Beat The Champ,” an album about professional wrestling. For a second I was worried that it wouldn’t hurl me into an existential abyss, but I was dead wrong! As I drove my 2001 Toyota Solara away from Alexandra’s house and heard the line, “Some things you will remember, some things stay sweet forever” I immediately pulled into the aforementioned grocery store parking lot.
4) The Sign (Ace of Base cover)
This was the only Mountain Goats song Alexandra liked.
5) Booyaka 619 (Rey Mysterio Theme, as performed by P.O.D)
The only thing I love more than crying and The Mountain Goats is pro wrestling. Additionally, it is a well known cult secret amongst true Mountain Goats Fans that Booyaka 619 is performed by Nu-Metal band P.O.D., but was originally written by John “My primary Function is Turn The Pain of Existence Into Art” Darnielle. While on the surface it is stylistically different from the rest of his work, it becomes painfully apparent during the line, “Blowing up screens like Space Invaders / too much damage for one to manage.” Just like all the damage I took when Alexandra left me.