I’m on record as saying that news of a new Mountain Goats album is about as good as news can get (although I’m paraphrasing myself), so I’ve been on a kind of music-related contact high ever since Transcendental Youth was announced last month. Now the pre-order and the first single are here, and although I’ll mostly recuse myself from commenting on it because my views on the Mountain Goats are well-known, I will say that I continue to be surprised and delighted by John Darnielle’s ability to subtly expand his musical palette to the benefit of his songwriting without it seeming showy or tacked-on. Also, he’s a quote machine – on the subject of this very song:
“Like a lot of the new album, this song is about saddling up your demons and learning to ride them like devil horses with big leathery wings. To the best of my knowledge, it’s also the first song ever to feature both a swinging horn section and a line about a baphomet drawn in chalk on an altar cloth, so everybody else who was trying to square that circle can take a breather now.”
I ordered the album already, as should you, and in the meantime, here’s the song:
