Darnielle began the new millennium with The Coroner's Gambit for Absolutely Kosher before signing to 4AD for the release of the surprisingly polished Tallahassee in 2002. We Shall All Be Healed followed in 2004, and one year later, Darnielle was back with The Sunset Tree. Remaining as prolific as ever, Darnielle turned away from the intensity of The Sunset Tree for a calmer, more reflective set of songs on 2006's Get Lonely. The accessible and assured Heretic Pride appeared in 2008. Next up was the Bible verse-inspired The Life of the World to Come, the group's sixth album for 4AD, in 2010. Switching to Merge Records in 2011, Darnielle released All Eternals Deck, which was recorded in four different studios in Brooklyn, Boston, North Carolina, and Florida with four different producers -- John Congleton, Scott Solter, Brandon Eggleston, and Morbid Angel guitarist and Hate Eternal frontman Erik Rutan -- helming various tracks. That year the band was also handpicked by Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival that he was curating in Minehead, England, but they were ultimately unable to appear due to scheduling issues.
Cry for Judas
The Mountain Goats Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
How bad they'll make you feel
Sometimes you try to freeze time
'Til the slots are a blur of spinning wheels
But I am just a broken machine
And I do things that I don't really mean
I'm still here, but all is lost
Speed up to the precipice
And then slam on the brakes
Some people crash two or three times
And then learn from their mistakes
But we are the ones who don't slow down at all
And there's nobody there to catch us when we fall
Long black night, morning frost
I'm still here, but all is lost
Feel the storm every night, hope it passes by
Hallucinate a shady grove where Judas went to die
Unfurl the black velvet altar cloth
Draw a white chalk Baphomet
Mistreat your altar boys long enough
And this is what you get
Sad and angry, can't learn how to behave
Still won't know how in the darkness of the grave
Long black night, morning frost
I'm still here, but all is lost
The lyrics of "Cry For Judas" by The Mountain Goats are introspective and discuss the struggle with self-destructive behavior. The first stanza portrays the desire to indulge in self-harm with the hope of gauging how bad it can make them feel. The second line talks about freezing time and watching the world spin. However, amidst all of this, the singer genuinely wishes to stay away from these urges but feels like a broken machine that does things they don't mean. The chorus curates the pain of the singer stuck in a long black night with morning frost, signifying the darkness within and around them.
The second stanza portrays an insight into those who crash and learn from their mistakes, and those who end up crashing repeatedly without slowing down to realize their wrongs. The singer belongs to the latter category, and there’s no one around to help if they fall. The chorus repeats, emphasizing how lost they feel. In the bridge, the singer describes a hallucination of a dark graveyard where Judas had gone to die, symbolizing how the guilt and moral ambiguity swirl in their head like a storm. They then refer to a black velvet altar cloth and draw a white chalk Baphomet, a symbol of Satanism. The mistreatment of their altar boys leads the singer to feel sad and angry, unable to learn how to behave, and even in the grave, they'll still be lost in darkness.
Line by Line Meaning
Some things you do just to see
There are moments where we participate in actions simply to evaluate how negative the repercussions would be.
How bad they'll make you feel
We aim to understand the negativity behind an action.
Sometimes you try to freeze time
Certain actions attempt to stall time.
'Til the slots are a blur of spinning wheels
Until the action becomes a flurry of occurring events that cannot be stopped.
But I am just a broken machine
Despite our attempts at preservation, we are broken human beings who slip up and make mistakes.
And I do things that I don't really mean
We are prone to do things that don't align with our beliefs or values.
Long black night, morning frost
A somber and cold time, when things seem to have come to an end.
I'm still here, but all is lost
Despite everything remaining as normal, something feels off and unfamiliar.
Speed up to the precipice
We are habituated to run towards danger
And then slam on the brakes
As the perpetuator of risky actions, we then suddenly halt them.
Some people crash two or three times
Certain individuals indulge in dangerous behavior multiple times before learning from it.
And then learn from their mistakes
These individuals learn from their bad choices and try to improve upon them.
But we are the ones who don't slow down at all
The maker of bad decisions never learn, they perpetually continue with their dangerous choices.
And there's nobody there to catch us when we fall
In the case of stumblers from their unlearned mistakes, there is no one there to help.
Feel the storm every night, hope it passes by
We experience a personal storm every night that comes and goes with hope of them being temporary.
Hallucinate a shady grove where Judas went to die
In our imaginative minds, we envisage a concept, specifically a dark and sinister place wherein someone unsavory met their demise.
Unfurl the black velvet altar cloth
The image of opening the black cloth on an altar.
Draw a white chalk Baphomet
Drawing of a Baphomet (a pagan deity with a goat's head) in its white color chalk.
Mistreat your altar boys long enough
The abuse of your assistants for an extended amount of time.
And this is what you get
The consequences that naturally follow mistreatment.
Sad and angry, can't learn how to behave
Despite all the emotions and feelings, one still can't understand how to respond appropriately.
Still won't know how in the darkness of the grave
Even with our passing, we likely will never understand how to make the right choice.
Long black night, morning frost
A somber and cold time, when things seem to have come to an end.
I'm still here, but all is lost
Despite everything remaining as normal, something feels off and unfamiliar.
Contributed by Henry F. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
ColinPaintsMinis
Ok, I'm working on a theory. The story centers around a messed-up family at a party of some kind, probably for the 4th of July. We have several major characters:
-Two redheaded sisters, one older with a boyfriend and one younger who is in a band.
-The dark-haired catholic mother, who had the two girls in a relationship with Jon Wurster. He is now dead or otherwise absent.
-John Darnielle, who is now in a relationship with the mother. This is only implied loosely because they are on rocky ground at the party in the video. He is a terrible stepfather and seems threatening to the youngest daughter at the party.
-Peter Hughes, who is JD's brother and in love with the mother as well. He has an uncle-niece relationship with the daughters.
The mother has made some questionable choices, such as forcing herself to keep her child, marrying JD, and then becoming involved with PH behind his back. Her daughters echo this trend of poor decision-making; the eldest is in an abusive relationship and gets knocked up, and the younger is so isolated that she has begun to practice satanism. PH and the mother's relationship spirals so far out of control that in a drunken rage, PH kills JD. At the end of the video, every character has made a decision that will have major consequences, and their secrets will inevitably be revealed to each other.
This story reflects the theme of the lyrics, which center around making brash and often disastrous decisions and being forced to live the consequences of your actions. There are a few holes, (JD's character is extremely ephemeral, and his relationship to the others is largely inferred from his few seconds of screentime) but I feel like it makes some sense in my mind.
Nic F
SenorCollyWolly First of all, this is a great piece and a welcome read, but I have a couple of observations to make.
First, JD doesn't seem threatening as a stepfather, to me he's just trying his best to fill JW's shoes and be a present and trustworthy dad; it's the family who's not buying it (first of all, there are no scenes where we see the mother and/or the elder daughter and JD together; secondly and more evidently, the young daughter answers to his "I'm still here" by just silently staring at him through her mask. The mask itself is a metaphor of the distance between the two). All of this makes it harder to figure why PH would kill JD. Part of me believes that JD committed suicide in the garage over the isolation he feels within his family and his own perceived failures; PH just found his body while fishing for a paintbrush (see the open jar of varnish in his hand) and is now just sitting there, dumbfounded and dazed, because he never really saw that coming.
I'd also like to offer that the only sane relationship in the family seems to be that of the two sisters, who for the most part get each other, having had similar experiences in the past as their family went through its successive crises and adjustments. For the most part, they enjoy spending time together, as they built a maze for their rat with lovely detail together, and are both eager to see the result when they release the animal in it.
However, theit relationship starts to deteriorate as the sisters go down different paths: the tension in the last scene is pretty palpable, as the younger sister tries to understand what her older sibling is going through and the elder one, despite the understanding and help she is implicitly being offered, realizes that they are growing apart and turns her back on the last relation she could put her complete faith in: from now on, she is emotionally alone.
I'd like some analysis on the rat-in-the-maze metaphor here as well, given that the rat is given notable screentime. The only meaning I've found so far is that all beings, however intelligent, will eventually have to go down the path their condition has reserved for them, just like a rat in a maze, no matter if what lies ahead is a darkness that they would only like to escape; or, as JD himself puts it Sax Rohmer #1, "every moment leads toward its own sad end".
The last observation I would offer is that throughout the video, in most scenes the characters and their actions are in enclosed spaces, surrounded by darkness, further underscoring the isolation they feel from the others.
The Goat Pen
+Niccolò Frualdo I have to disagree on the father and John. Near the end, that doesn't look like a can of varnish to me.
It looks like a mason jar. Farther down south it's more common that people use mason jars as glasses to drink out of.
Tom me, it looks more like he killed him out of jealousy for "taking his place" in the family (which works with the daughters feeling isolated for him, and his reuniting with his ex wife, makes him jealous again.
This along with John being killed on top of a plastic that is usually depicted when someone kills a person they plan on disposing of without evidence.
So, where as you see it as the father unfortunately finding John dead from a suicide, I see it as a jealous father killing his "replacement " and wanting to return to his "old life". And realizing he can't do so, drinks to calm himself from his anger that sent him into a rage that killed John.
"I'm still here, but all is lost".
There is however the other possibility that the youngest daughter could be John's killer as she resents him for "replacing" her father. The father has no blood on him when we see him next to Johns body, but the younger sister we can only see from the shadows.
I'm not saying John is depicted as an abusive father in the video, more so, a person who tried to do the right thing and be a father, but isn't given a chance because (as well as other songs including some that you listed in the Easter eggs) he isn't given the chance to.
He is pre-judged for unfair reasons and assumptions, and is taken from the world in a "cavalcade of anger and fear".
Flaming Failure Productions
+EdwardMelton same guy who wrote the second and third comment here.
I can't really see the young daughter as the killer, she's too deep in her world to do anything that real.
As for Peter, I can sort of see him do it. When you see him look away at 2:12, you could read that as a show of insincerity; or maybe he's just now realizing how jealous he is of John, and how he wants him dead. Maybe the jar/glass in his hand at the homicide scene is to let us think he's been drinking in order to find the strength to do the deed, and he's now contemplating what he just did while still drinking.
Still, I think the conflicts here are for the most part kept inside: every person in the family keeps his own hurt for himself and finds ways to channel them out on their own. For the elder daughter that would be sex with her boyfriend; for the younger one it's her drawings, her music and her "Satanism"; the mother finds comfort in her relationship with Peter, as he does with her; Peter also drinks to keep the bad thoughts away.
However, the person who suffers the most is John: John is the one who works hardest to keep the family together, and he's the one who feels the most isolated - from his stepdaughters, who are growing apart from him; from his wife, who is divided between missing her first husband, Jon Wurster, and her growing affection for Peter; from Peter, who he feels is taking over his role in the family (and Peter himself might only have a vague sense of this, up to his possible epiphany at 2:12). So he's the one who feels the most distress, and that would explain his suicide. He may even be the one who has laid the tarpaulin on which he is found, in order to make the whole thing less messy for the others to clean. Which doesn't completely make sense, but at this stage John is clearly not thinking straight anymore. The last (and only) time we see John before he's found dead, back at the at dinner party (1:47), he's still vainly trying to reason with the young daughter. Time passes (notice how every time we see Peter he's dressed differently, for instance), John grows depressed and alone (even though we don't see it as it happens) and finally reacts by killing himself.
Christopher Bingham
This is one of my favorite songs. The brass section caught me by surprise the first time I heard it because they don't typically have brass on their songs, but this time they were trying to do something new. I loved it. Almost 20 years in their career, they had created one of their best singles ever and their best album since 2005
Jack Larus
I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: the rat in this video is one of the most compelling actors I've ever seen on film.
ToastyG
Easily my favorite metal band.
Paris Bright
The best metal band is Satan's fingers/the Killers/ the Hospital Bombers. Death metal that is.
ToastyG
Well those guys are the best death metal band to come out of the Denton area.
Paris Bright
Will Flock True.
Jibop Jopip
Several people are typing...
EnderSquid 11
"metal"
JamesB1996
I wish I could write such amazing lyrics. This song doesn't need a slow, sweet melody to be absolutely heart-wrenching. It's all in the words.
Lonnie
Just start writing and practicing! JD has been a huge inspiration for my own lyrics and songs