You may know American band The Mountain Goats from their upbeat, folksy songs about dysfunction and failure, growing up in the middle of Nowheresville, Texas, or that intoxicating feeling of teenage wanderlust and escape. Maybe you even know The Mountain Goats because they sang an alternate version of The Last Jedi called "The Ultimate Jedi Who Wastes All the Other Jedi and Eats Their Bones".
But at least one person in this world knows John Darnielle, the founder, lead singer, and former sole member of The Mountain Goats as simply "Dad".
And what a lucky kid that one person is. The Mountain Goats Twitter is usually a place to find Darnielle engaging in nerdy hobbies, promoting other musicians, and generally being a pretty rad guy, but on Sunday, he posted a video of his child playing Breath of the Wild while he jammed along on piano with improvised lyrics.
"Well, we arrived at Hyrule Castle just before night
Gotta do something about all this Blight
There's Guardians everywhere
They used to bother us, but now we don't care"- The lyrics to Darnielle's Zelda song
There's a fantastic Springsteen-esque quality to the offbeat singing and the poetic, talk-sung lyrics, heedless of metrical rhythm. We can't decide if we want a full album of Zelda music by The Mountain Goats, or if we just want John Darnielle to be our dad.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 17
ten/ten. it was a song about a cool game.
Well that’s incredibly sweet. Plus The Mountain Goats are brilliant. Their run of albums from 2002-2005 is incredibly consistent.
@nessisonett 4-19 even in baseball those are terrible statistics.
The Mountain Goats have consistently been my favorite band for over a decade. I got into them in early 2007 between the releases of Get Lonely and Heretic Pride when a friend played select songs from All Hail West Texas, Tallahassee, and The Sunset Tree, respectively.
I was immediately hooked, and being the then-collegiate little pirate I was, downloaded his entire discography (I’ve since properly purchased his entire discography available on CD (and a few lucky EP vinyls on tour), made seven “The Very Best Of the Mountain Goats” disc compilations for my closest musician friends, helped teach a friend to play guitar with almost nothing but Mountain Goats covers, and to this day sing along to said covers with that friend once a year at our annual Flag Day party.
My first tour purchase happened to coincide with the release of the EP that this little gem was on that I think you will enjoy:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JnbYyTlz1Tw
Hail Satan!
@Nameless_Shame I was trying fruitlessly to combine a Mountain Goats album name with something from Zelda for the tagline. The closest I got was "Tallahorsey". Terrible. Maybe you can come up with a better one with your intimate knowledge of their catalogue
(also, I think of all people, John would understand you pirating the album, but that's just speculation)
@KateGray Ha! I actually like Tallahorsey.
Maybe “We Shall All Be the Song of Healing”? Lol I’d actually have to spend some time to do justice to a proper crossover name.
@Luigisghost669 It’s not that the rest of their albums are bad. They aren’t. It’s just that their first 4 albums are really really good. And besides, 99% of bands produce more mediocre albums than truly great ones. You don’t judge The Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney by their later albums.
@nessisonett The albums you’re referencing are technically his ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth albums. Old boy goes all the way back to 1991.
@KateGray The Sunset Deku Tree?
@KateGray
Nothing for Lava Juice (an Oracle of Seasons deep cut reference)
Dampé: The Coroner's Gambit
All Hail West Necluda
The Sunset Deku Tree
Beat the Champ(ions Ballad)
Edit: @TheDanslator Ha! Nice, you beat me to it.
The stones have been putting out music since the early to mid 60s, a band that influenced everyone and we’re still adding songs to their set that everyone knows until the mid 90s and today in their 80s fills American football stadiums.so comparing them to a super underground intentionally lo-fi indie folk banjo band, Not the best comparison
@Nameless_Shame Yep, I’m being stupid, I meant their first few albums of the 2000s and probably should chuck The Coroner’s Gambit in there too as I think that might have just snuck into the new millennium.
@Luigisghost669 Lol he was using The Rolling Stones as a reference for how people can misjudge a band, chill out. It sounds like you’re arguing for the sake of arguing. He never implied they were bigger than The Rolling Stones and he never implied that tMG’s other albums were bad, just that those four were personally exceptional to him.
But if you want to argue for the sake of arguing, The Mountain Goats have around 700 songs, and MAYBE five of them incorporate a banjo.
@KateGray The Legend of Chavo Gerudo
Where's that Goat from BotW guy? He should be all over this article lol.
@KateGray Also! Since you referenced his Last Jedi song, you may be interested that Rian Johnson even filmed a documentary/full album performance of John Darnielle’s 2009 album, “The Life of the World to Come” in 2010.
Now THIS is my mind of crossover... one of my favorite bands, and my favorite video game franchise
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