maybe tomorrow it rains, maybe tomorrow it rains

Most Moun­tain Goats releases are auto­matic can­di­dates for year-end lists around the Grill­pants HQ, but Mr. Darnielle’s EPs can some­times be pretty frustrating–never really as con­sis­tent or as stun­ning as his full-length releases tend to be. (I invite my fellow writers to con­test this point, since I know y’all might feel dif­fer­ently.) Last year’s Dilaudid EP, for instance, had sev­eral great songs, but two of them were taken directly from The Sunset Tree. The other, “Col­lapsing Stars,” was nearly as great as any­thing on the album, but the EP was rounded out with a rather dis­ap­pointing remix of the title track. As a whole, not really worth buying just for one new song, except for com­pletists. The demos and b-sides col­lec­tion Come, Come to the Sunset Tree fared a little better, but still suf­fered from the same kind of inconsistency.

The Babylon Springs EP (buy), released exclu­sively in Aus­tralia by 4AD, is some­thing else entirely. It’s com­prised of five songs, all new (though one is a cover), and all of them good enough to make a proper Moun­tain Goats album. The first couple tracks in par­tic­ular, “Ox Baker Tri­umphant” (con­tin­uing Darnielle’s strange obses­sion with pro wrestling) and “Alibi” make per­haps the best use of the full band sound that Darnielle has been cul­ti­vating over his past few releases. “Alibi” cruises along on a vibe and tempo that he never could have pulled off in the Casio days (in a way, it’s amazing how much his sound has evolved since All Hail West Texas), lay­ered acoustic and elec­tric gui­tars floating over a little synth as John spins a pretty simple story of a col­lege hookup in the idio­syn­cratic way that only he can.

Else­where on the album, the ter­ri­tory gets darker. In fact, the EP seems to progress rather neatly from hap­pi­ness (though the pro­tag­o­nist in “Ox Baker Tri­umphant” seems a bit more deranged than happy) and hope toward misery and despair. “Some­times I Still Feel the Bruise”, a Trem­bling Blue Stars cover, is a straight­for­ward lament for unre­quited (or, I guess, not-quite-as-requited) love, but it cuts deep all the same. It’s pretty easy to tell that the lyrics aren’t Darnielle’s–the imagery just isn’t there, and the emo­tions aren’t as real­is­ti­cally tan­gled and con­fused as they are in his orig­i­nals. “Wait For You” is a much more characteristically-Mountain Goats-y take on some­thing like the same mate­rial, bathed in sunset/death imagery and sung the way it has to be sung: hushed, and with a dying note of hope.

I got bored last night before I went to sleep, so I tran­scribed the lyrics for the entire EP. Look:

OX BAKER TRIUMPHANT

I will rise
from the swamp
where they dumped my pri­vate plane
I’ll be clutching the life
pre­server
in my teeth
and I will find
the highway
and I will flag down a truck
worry lines on my fore­head
blank stare underneath

and when I come
back to town
I’m gonna cast my burden down
a little worse for wear
prac­ti­cally walking on air

I will thank
my ride
and claw my way back inside
to the guts of the building
where my ene­mies
hide in the dark like roaches
and I will signal the camera crew
and everyone will do what he’s been trained how to do
sweat drip­ping from my face
as my moment approaches

click your heels
count to three
I’ll bet you never expected me
a little worse for wear
prac­ti­cally walking on air

ALIBI

I got off work just past 11
laid one finger to the breeze
you can almost taste the action
on nights like these

trees were bending in the wind
you were forty miles away
and I was heading your direc­tion
I’ve been waiting all day
I’ve been waiting all day

moon over west covina
was huge and white
and I was like a patient on a table
headed for the light

lean toward the center divider
feel the wind in my hair
keep a light up in your window
I’m gonna be right there
I’m gonna be right there

with a gleam in my eye
and an almost air­tight alibi

down by the chem­istry building
I found a quiet place to park
and I made my way down the street toward your place
step­ping lightly in the dark

climbed the steps up to your doorway
like a man pre­pared to jump beneath a train
it’s real warm out­side tonight
maybe tomorrow it rains
maybe tomorrow it rains

inside your room we shut the window
and we turned on a fan
and we lay there in the dark­ness
I can keep a secret if you can

fin­ishing one another’s sen­tences
like a pair of iden­tical twins
your boyfriend is out of town until tuesday
and nobody saw me come in
nobody saw me come in

with a gleam in my eye
and an almost air­tight alibi

SAIL BABYLON SPRINGS

and mean­while down­stairs
I’m set­ting up shop
a little too proud
to let the matter drop

and I can hear you up there
isn’t it romantic
you’re huffing and puffing, rear­ranging
deck chairs on the titanic

and I reach for a glass
of cool water drawn
from the rivers of babylon

and mean­while out­side
the stars have come out
and the humid summer air
pulls at the ring in my snout

and you stand at your window, looking down
and I spread wide my arms
jump if you want to jump
jump if you want to

the water’s warm, I know
I know because I’ve been swim­ming
blindly along through the rivers of babylon

SOMETIMES I STILL FEEL THE BRUISE

this is just to say hello
and to let you know
I think of you from time to time
I know I never really knew you
but somehow I miss you
and wish that you’d stayed in my life

making con­tact gets harder
as the silence grows longer
isn’t it only me
who’d like us to see each other?
how I would hate to be a bother
the way we left it was you’d ring

I’m under no illu­sion
as to what I meant to you
if you made an impres­sion
some­times I still feel the bruise
some­times I still feel the bruise

now and then I’ll stumble on
what I’ve mis­placed but never lost
an ache I first felt long ago
for you’ve appeared and dis­ap­peared
throughout these past few years
I’d be sur­prised if you now showed

making con­tact gets harder
as the silence grows longer
why would you think of me?
when you were not the one in love
when you were not the dreamer
when you were just the dream

I’m under no illu­sion
as to what I meant to you
but you made an impres­sion
some­times I still feel the bruise
some­times I still feel the bruise

WAIT FOR YOU

when it came time to wait for you
I took the bus to malibu
found a café by the ocean
watched the sky for signs

and a rainbow in the west
wrapped its coils around the earth
like a ser­pent
I felt like I was going to
suffocate

but I knew this was not the day
you would find me come my way
but I waited all the same
watched the water through the window

and a rainbow in the west
held its head beneath the waves
and grew dimmer
nothing anyone could do
I suppose