The Mountain Goats are an American band formed in Claremont, California, by… Read Full Bio ↴The Mountain Goats are an American band formed in Claremont, California, by singer-songwriter John Darnielle. The band is currently based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For many years, the sole member of the Mountain Goats was Darnielle, despite the plural moniker. The Mountain Goats are, for all practical purposes, the endlessly clever and prolific John Darnielle and whatever musicians he surrounds himself with, which means that while the soundscape may change from project to project, the overall tone and feel of Darnielle's work remains remarkably consistent. At his best, he writes finely observed, slightly surreal, impressionistic vignettes that manage to mix life as we live it with life as we wish we could live it, and as such he has more in common with a novelist than he does with the typical singer/songwriter, which is fitting, as he's also a published author. Darnielle's early Mountain Goats releases were lo-fi, cassette-recorded efforts cut with a rotating lineup of musicians, such as 1995's Nine Black Poppies and 2000's The Coroner's Gambit. By 2005's The Sunset Tree, his recordings had become cleaner and less cluttered, but his characters studies were just as vivid, and as the Mountain Goats finally cohered into a stable lineup (with Darnielle joined by Peter Hughes, Matt Douglas, and Jon Wurster), they recorded tuneful, thematically unified albums such as Beat the Champ (2015) and Goths (2017) that ranked with their finest work.
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.

Masher
The Mountain Goats Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Most of the brine has got to boil away
Most of the air has got to choke you
Most of June I spent in jail again
I don't mean jail, exactly

Up in the pine tree
Red squirrel looking down at me
I am losing control of the language again

I am losing control of the language again

Most of the things I used to hold onto
Most of the things I used to say to you
Most of the ways I knew around the local roads
Are disappearing daily

High in the cottonwood
You were looking down at me and it sure looked good
Hair hanging down in the leaves
Your neck tilted back to make a rainbow

I was losing control of the language again
I am losing control of the language again

Overall Meaning

The Mountain Goats's song "Masher" is a reflective, introspective track that delves into the theme of losing control. The songwriter opens the song by asserting that he has lost most of the brine and air, indicating that he is left with very little in his life. He then goes on to reveal that he spent most of June in jail. However, he clarifies that it was not necessarily "jail," keeping the listeners guessing at what he actually means. The song then delves deeper into the theme of struggling with communication and language. The songwriter admits that he is losing control of the language again, which can be understood as a metaphor for both struggling to communicate with others and struggling to understand one's own emotions and thoughts.

This theme of losing control is further emphasized through the imagery of animals, such as the red squirrel and cottonwood that are mentioned in the lyrics. The songwriter is looking up at these creatures, feeling a sense of longing and admiration for their effortless existence, but also acknowledging that he is losing control. The song ends on a whimper, with the songwriter admitting once again that he is losing control of the language.

Line by Line Meaning

Most of the brine has got to boil away
Most of the salty water has to evaporate

Most of the air has got to choke you
Most of the atmosphere will suffocate you

Most of June I spent in jail again
I was locked up for most of the month of June

I don't mean jail, exactly
It wasn't quite a literal jail, but it felt like one

Up in the pine tree
I climbed up into the evergreen

Red squirrel looking down at me
A colorful squirrel observed me from above

I am losing control of the language again
I no longer have mastery over how I express myself

Most of the things I used to hold onto
Almost everything I used to cling to

Most of the things I used to say to you
Most of my previous conversations with you

Most of the ways I knew around the local roads
I've forgotten most of the shortcuts I knew on the nearby streets

Are disappearing daily
They're vanishing with each passing day