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.

New Star Song
The Mountain Goats Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

I hung pictures of you from every lamp post in town
As the humidity climbed into numbers I don't care to repeat
The air was heavy and the sky was alive
And the pacific starlight train wasn't due in till 11. 45

Chorus
I thought about how cold you must be
I thought about things I thought that I'd soon be forgetting

I thought of you up in canada as the lightning storm lit up
All downtown redding

There were teenagers in mini-trucks coming around every corner
You can taste the adrenaline, coming out through their skin
I came to the well-lit doorway of a sheet music store
Saw my face in the glass. sat down in the doorway and I settled in

(Chorus)

Overall Meaning

The Mountain Goats's song New Star Song is a hauntingly beautiful track that is packed with imagery and emotion. The song starts with the singer hanging pictures of someone they deeply care about from every lamp post in town, while the humidity levels rise to uncomfortable levels. The singer is experiencing a mix of emotions with the air feeling heavy and the sky appearing alive. It appears that the singer is waiting for the pacific starlight train to arrive at 11:45 and they continue to hang the pictures.

The chorus of the song is about the singer thinking about the person they care about and how they must be feeling, even though they are miles away in Canada. The lightning storm lights up downtown Redding, and the singer is reminiscing about the things they thought they would soon forget about this person.

The second verse talks about teenagers in mini-trucks coming around every corner, and the adrenaline emanating from their skin. The singer then arrives at a well-lit doorway of a sheet music store and sits down in the doorway while looking at his reflection in the glass. The song ends with a repeat of the chorus.

Line by Line Meaning

I hung pictures of you from every lamp post in town
I miss you so much that I went to the extreme of hanging your pictures everywhere in town

As the humidity climbed into numbers I don't care to repeat
The weather was getting unbearably hot and muggy

The air was heavy and the sky was alive
The atmosphere was tense and surreal

And the pacific starlight train wasn't due in till 11. 45
The train wasn't scheduled to arrive until late at night

I thought about how cold you must be
I thought about how lonely and miserable you must feel

I thought about things I thought that I'd soon be forgetting
I reminisced on things I thought I could let go of, but couldn't

I thought of you up in canada as the lightning storm lit up
I imagined you in Canada while a storm raged on

All downtown redding
The storm was so intense that it lit up the entire downtown area of Redding

There were teenagers in mini-trucks coming around every corner
There were teenagers speeding in their trucks, recklessly turning around every corner

You can taste the adrenaline, coming out through their skin
Their excitement and fear was palpable and almost tangible

I came to the well-lit doorway of a sheet music store
I stumbled upon a brightly lit sheet music store

Saw my face in the glass. sat down in the doorway and I settled in
I caught my reflection in the glass, and took a moment to sit down and collect my thoughts

Contributed by Julian L. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

To comment on or correct specific content, highlight it

TRACKS