doctorskelegoats

[doctorskelegoats]

Minnesota, off Full Force Galesburg, just screams Magnus and Abigail in the bubble to me. "Just the old blood, Rising up through the wooden floors again; Just the old love, Asking for more again." It's a sweet but ominous song, and it's just incredible live. Art Credit: @lulafia

[doctorskelegoats]

Camilla Hect has arguably always been into non conventional munitions but nonetheless, this is her song. I kind of think of it as a twin to Pictures of my Dress, being both emblematic of very different responses to grief. Art Credit @rosenkranz-does-things

[doctorskelegoats]

At the Grace Cathedral show, I was wearing my rainbow Heretic Pride friendship bracelet (known to old heads as Kandi). It exploded rather suddenly, which by an act of sympathetic magic caused JD to play this song (Michael Myers Resplendent), which is clearly about Cytherea Loveday. I could've used any line in it: "I am ready for my close-up today. Too long I've let my self respect get in my way." "The prom queen's caught in the high beams, and the strings keen: it's a big scene." Art credit @sermna

[doctorskelegoats]

This song (if not the entire album Bleed Out) is very Nav coded: We worship nothing in the foxholes, Thanks to DeviantArt's Merwild for the art and @karmicbias for the truly excellent idea.

[doctorskelegoats]

Weekend in Western Illinois is clearly written from Nona's perspective about her beloved city. I think of Varun and the heralds "Yeah they howl as though the world were ending/As we are watching the sky unwinding/And some of our promises were binding/Up here where our dreams take form" Art credit DeviantArt user XhrChloe

[doctorskelegoats]

Art credit @mercyisms The Ethiopians is an unreleased Tallahassee track that (like all Alpha couple songs) fits Mercymorn and Augustine disturbingly well. Consider: Cristobel and Alfred's eyes haunting them perpetually, " I can't think of one thing in this whole wide blessed world/that's more dangerous and frightening than you when you get bored" considering Mercy's hobby of memorizing the body to kill lyctors. Here's the song, because why would anybody have heard it.

Also, I'm opening up Asks in case you have suggestions, I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here

[doctorskelegoats]

Younger is Commander We Suffer and We Suffer and We Suffer, from beginning to end. Like, the bit here (which I probably used too much of but oh well) sure, she says that to Nona nearly verbatim, but also "Send out scouts by day/Dole out mercenary pay/For restless young subordinates" and "This whole house is doomed." and so on. It was hard AF to find any good fanart of her, thanks to @notedchampagne

[doctorskelegoats]

Our night boss is in her heart of hearts a skrunkly possum, my mind will not be changed. Her soul is literally parasitized by 200 dead souls, and she's motivated by a fierce desire to bring her people to the promised land, where they can grow fat and grow old and go blind and be content. Art Credit @anflan

[doctorskelegoats]

Genesis 30:3 is a beautiful song from the perspective of Bilhah, so it resonates painfully with Gideon. Like Bilhah she loves a woman to whom she is property but also family: the complex mystery at the heart of her psyche is that she just wants to be asked. "For several hours we lay there, last ones of our kind/Harder days coming maybe, I don't mind/Sounds kind of dumb when I say it, but it's true/I would do anything for you." Art credit: @corvophobia

[doctorskelegoats]

My first fandom, one which I entered into three dozen years ago and never left is the one devoted to the smallest and best of the big cats, the majestic queen of the alpine steppe, Panthera Uncia.* It is therefore appropriately paired with the first Mountain Goats song I ever heard, and my favorite from the pre-AHWT era. My friend Lizzie sang it to me while we waited outside our historical linguistics class, then we saw JD perform it together two decades later at Grace Cathedral because life is weird.

*The "Uncia" is due to some rebracketing from the root word *luncia (proto-romance "Lynx like") which because French was analyzed as L'once (in much the same way that "a nadder" was split into "an adder").

[doctorskelegoats]

In Memory of Satan captures the depths of mental illness in a way no other song ever has, so it perfectly fits Harrow being haunted by Alecto, who she believes to be just another manifestation of her own darkness. Also, the mythological resonances between Satan and Alecto are pretty self-explanatory. I had the idea for this one in Transcendental Youth week but couldn't find the art for it (but now I have! yay! art credit: @rat-studio).

[doctorskelegoats]

Clean Slate is very Harrowhark-coded. "Remember at your peril, forget the ones you can." But she cannot forget the 200 dead children, nor the house falling into disrepair, nor the idiot with the sword and the asymmetrical smile, try as she might. "This world is sad and broken, got to fix a crack or two" Art credit kathiliart

[doctorskelegoats]

Horseradish Road, off of Coroner's Gambit, isn't about the Locked Tomb at all BUT IT IS about series of unfortunate events. I mean, it's right there in the title: Lousy Lane smells of horseradish because it's next to the Opportune Odors Horseradish Factory, manufacturing countermeasures for the fungal weapons of mass destruction about to be loosed on the world (ah children's literature, so cheerful). The song is from Olaf's point of view, addressing Esme Squalor (with the thousands of dollars in her purse), as they transport the Quagmires (their voices muffled by confinement) from one place to another. The graphic design here is Bad, because I made it on my phone in the middle of the night. This is probably Too Niche for this already highly niche blog but there you go.

[doctorskelegoats]

Murder at the 18th Street Garage is about ascending to lyctorhood, fight me. "Tending the fires, gathering power: May I present the man of the hour." Sounds an awful lot like Ianthe talking about Babs, using the fire of his soul to fuel the engine of her necromancy. "Once you commit to the turn, you're gonna have to follow through" "Bearing an exile's mark, one that's gonna glow in the dark." Sounds like someone has committed an indelible sin and will be pursued relentlessly by resurrection beasts, thus exiling them from the Nine Houses. Anyway. Art credit, Twitter user @snartemis

[doctorskelegoats]

The alternate take of the Golden Boy peanuts post. 1 Samuel 15:23 from Life of the World to come has serious Jod vibes: "My houses will be for all people who have nowhere else to go." "There's more like me where I come from, mark our shapes. Go down to the netherworld, plant grapes." and John (Darnielle)'s commentary makes it even more so  "Anyway, the whole crystal healing business suffered a severe downturn once reiki became popular, and so I got into music instead. But in my heart I'll always be Johnny Crystal first and foremost, and I figured it was time to write a song about it. This is that song and it's all true, every last word." To be honest I've never been quite sure if he is talking about meth or alternative medicine, but regardless it's Jod all over. Art credit @ynks

[doctorskelegoats]

Emperor John Gaius, Necrolord Prime, Shitposter Supreme, discreet eater of peanuts. Nostalgic for a place that doesn't exist because he destroyed it. Babygirl and deserver of Acid Jail. Art Credit @ynks

cf "I'd just like to point out, that for God knows how long, We have in fact been living in a world in which The company that made these peanuts no longer makes them. You do the math" - John "probably not a war criminal" Darnielle.

Also, I've missed this ridiculous hobby, but the previous daily schedule was too stressful so I'm going to try a semiweekly basis instead.

[doctorskelegoats]

For the last week I have been listening to Black Dog (from Tortured Poets disc 2, highly recommended to mountain goats fans) because there's serotonin in them thar hills, and this comparison occurred around the hundredth repetition (because queer yearning). Luz is too young to know this song, Raine's Rhapsody, which is very literally intertwined in the magic fabric of their dreaming. I have more Locked Tomb stuff in the queue, but this skipped ahead because of fixation.