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.

Rain Song
The Mountain Goats Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

[john spoken]
...the mountain goats on the umm
Well, the um twenty fouth of january - a monday, at about ten
And this is called uh, this is called,
Well i don't know what it's called
By the time i write it down, the title is on the tape
And then i'll know what it's called

The rain came down
Soaked the old habachi
And i wish i could sing, like allen callaci
And then you would know
How sad it was, when the rain came down

Drop by drop
Gallon by gallon
Brother if i could sing,
If i could sing like allen

You would know
And understand how sad it was when the rain came down

Overall Meaning

In the opening lines of The Mountain Goats' song Rain Song, John Darnielle describes the moment in which he created the song. He explains that it was the 24th of January, a Monday, and it was around 10 AM, when he and The Mountain Goats began recording the song that would come to be called Rain Song. The title of the song was not predetermined, and Darnielle humorously notes that by the time he actually wrote down the title, it was already on the tape, so he would have known what the song was called.

Line by Line Meaning

The rain came down
It started to rain heavily

Soaked the old habachi
The rain drenched a type of Japanese charcoal grill called habachi, suggesting that the rain was quite strong

And i wish i could sing, like allen callaci
The singer wishes they had the same talent as Allen Callaci, a musician known for his emotional performances, to express how they feel about the rain

And then you would know
If they had the ability to sing like Allen Callaci, the listener would understand the artist's melancholy mood due to the rain

How sad it was, when the rain came down
The heavy rain caused the artist to feel sorrowful

Drop by drop
The rain fell slowly and consistently

Gallon by gallon
The rain fell in large amounts, emphasizing its heaviness

Brother if i could sing,
The artist is addressing someone informally as 'brother' while expressing a hypothetical situation

If i could sing like allen
The artist is reiterating their wish to have the same musical talent as Allen Callaci

You would know
The listener would be able to understand the artist's feelings about the rain

And understand how sad it was when the rain came down
The heavy rain caused the singer to experience intense sorrow, which they believe would be conveyed through song

Contributed by Vivian N. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

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