Wings For Wheels

Over at Fuel/Friends, Heather has a new track from the upcoming CD by The Mountain Goats, news that can only be described as “freakin’ sweet.” John Darnielle is an amazing songwriter and The Sunset Tree is one of the definitive albums of this decade, which features This Year.

Putting aside the fact that Darnielle is a worse haircut away from winning a Rod Blagojevich lookalike contest, this is one of the greatest teen angst songs ever recorded, so much so that even at 40 it pulls at me. A great crooner can set a mood with the opening notes. You immediately know whether he’s in or out of love. There’s no way Darnielle’s voice will ever be confused with Chris Isaak’s, but his edgy, desperate tone still tells you everything you need to know about him as soon as he opens his mouth.

I broke free on a Saturday morning
I put the pedal to the floor
Headed north on Mills Avenue,
And listened to the engine roar

My broken house behind me and good things ahead
A girl named Cathy wants a little of my time
Six cylinders underneath the hood crashing and kicking
Ahhh listen to the engine whine

That could easily have been penned by Bruce Springsteen circa 1975. But Darnielle isn’t shooting for one last chance to make it real. And Cathy isn’t Wendy or Mary; she doesn’t have guys screaming her name at night in the street. She’s as alone and screwed up as he is. And it’s all summed up in the singular line of the chorus.

I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.

We use that phrase so often that its meaning has been stripped. “I’m going to finish this project/run that extra mile/eat that giant plate of nachos if it kills me” (that last one just might work). But there’s no doubt that Darnielle is deadly serious about it. One more year, then I graduate and I can get out of this house (a lesser talent would have over-emphasized the stepfather), and this shithole town. And when that happen, “there will be feasting and dancing in Jerusalem.”

For all the intensity of the performance, what stands out is how the song never breaks out. In the hands of lesser talents, the drums would kick in and electrics would replace the acoustics. There’s also the chord progression. Each line in the verse and chorus with an A chord, rises to the E (the V, which is supposed to provide resolution), and drops back to the A at the end of the line. And in the chorus, he suspends the E chord, replacing the G# with an A. It may seem like a small detail, but it’s those subliminal touches that make Darnielle stand out among his peers. The beauty of This Year is that, no matter where the lyric goes, the music keeps bringing Darnielle back,  trapping him in his hellish existence. You don’t know if he will make it, but you’re rooting for him.

And yes, that is the song Craig Finn paid tribute to it at the end of Girls Like Status.

It was song number three on John’s last CD
Gonna make it through this year if it kills me
And it almost killed me