An Adolescent Boy Reviews The Mountain Goats’ The Sunset Tree
The album review that follows was salvaged from a battered spiral-ring notebook bearing the logo of 180 Degree Ministries, a Christian counseling program for “troubled teens” operating out of Middle Tennessee. It has been edited for clarity (and profanity) by Charlie Clark.
An installment in our continuing series, in honor of the album’s 20th anniversary.
DECEMBER 19—SOMETHING YOU LOVE—GOD’S LOVE FOR YOU???
I’m supposed to write about something I love, and I figure if I do a good job, maybe that’s one step closer to not having to come here anymore. There’s this band called the Mountain Goats, and you’re not going to like them, and I probably shouldn’t even be talking to you about them because they say **** like “Hail, Satan” and have songs about drugs and sex and stuff. And even my friends think it’s weird that I like them because their sound is not heavy at all. But I’m going to tell you about this album called The Sunset Tree, which is probably their most popular album, and I guess, yeah, it’s something I love.
I never even heard of the Mountain Goats before last year. I went to this Ides of Gemini show (Ides is actually heavy and they have this girl singer that is super hot but I’m not telling you about Ides.) at Mercy Lounge, and I’d never been in there before because the metal shows are usually at High Watt on the other side of the building. And that’s the main reason I had the fake ID by the way. You think I’m walking into like a liquor store with that ****? Anyway, you don’t need a fake to score a few beers, you just need to not be a total ******* idiot. I needed the fake because all the good shows are 18+.
Ides was opening and they killed. They’re like very doomy and you don’t really mosh to them but there was a decent number of us up front that were metal or at least emo. The rest of the crowd was kind of weird and just hanging back. There were some girls that were kind of scene and also like old dudes in flannel shirts, and I’m thinking, “Okay, whatever the Mountain Goats are, I guess this is their crowd.” And some of the metalheads left after Ides but a lot of them stayed or even moved up, so then I realized, “Okay, they’re here for this Goat band too.” And that is how the Mountain Goats are—like you’re either in or you’re out but anybody can be in and some of every type are. Anyway, I’m like, “I paid for this ticket, I guess I’ll see what this is.”
John comes out solo and plays “Unmasked!” and like I said the sound is not heavy at all but that song is kind of goth, so I kind of got into it. And then the rest of the band came out and played “Up the Wolves,” and when they play it live the energy is extreme, like kick your teeth in extreme. Like John is just pounding the guitar and screaming. And everyone else is getting into it, and this whole weird crowd is screaming too, and I just get kind of dragged along. And we get to the part, where it’s like “I’m gonna bribe the officials! I’m gonna kill all the judges!” And I’m like, “Okay, this is kind of heavy without sounding heavy,” right?
And that song is from The Sunset Tree. And they played a couple other songs from The Sunset Tree too. They played “Love, Love, Love,” which is this song that has a bunch of stuff from the Bible but also about Kurt Cobain and how love can make you do bad stuff, like even kill yourself. And they played “Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod,” and that sounds like it’s from the Bible but I don’t think it actually is, and it’s about how John’s stepdad used to beat him up when he was a kid and he was always just worried that he would break his stereo. And at the end they played “This Year” and the crowd went crazy for that one. All I got was the chorus, which is just, “I am going to make it through this year if it kills me!” and everyone including me is just yelling that and it felt so ******* good.
So after the show, I went over to the merch table and there was this girl working the table and I was looking at the CDs, and I picked up a copy of All Eternals Deck because I liked the cover, and I flipped it over and some of the song titles sounded heavy—like “Beautiful Gas Mask” and “Prowl Great Cain”—and the merch girl was like, “Have you heard that one?” And I was like, “No.” So she says, “What’s your favorite?” And I say, “I never heard of them before tonight.” And she was like, “Then you should start with this one,” and she pointed to The Sunset Tree, and I think, “Okay, how about you don’t ******* tell me what the **** to do.” But then someone wanted a shirt, so she turned around, and I slipped a Sunset Tree CD in my jacket and got out of there.
Jesus isn’t going around lecturing everybody about their grades and trying to make them fit in and make varsity. He’s just being with people. Like that’s 90% of it. Just being a person like, “I understand what you’re going through.”
And I started listening to that CD a lot. Mostly when it was just me. And the album is mostly about two things: getting abused by your stepdad and doing stupid **** (drugs, sex, breaking ****) because you’re getting abused but also just because it’s what you have to do. Like not even because it feels good but because like, “This is how I prove I’m a human being.” And I get that second part. Like I know nobody ever beat me up, but everything sucks, right? Like my dad is this washed-up preacher who works at State Farm and it’s like ******* embarrassing, right? And mom has a new boyfriend every 20 minutes and they’re all ******* losers. And now, I’m here because I like to get high sometimes and because me and [redacted] are hooking up and dad is embarrassed in front of his church friends.
And John is like, “I was there. I get it.” Like Steve if Steve wasn’t the guy your dad pays to tell you to stop getting high and keep it in your pants and go to ******* school so you can go to ******* college so you can go work for ******* State Farm until you’re 80 or whatever. (Sorry, Steve, but you suck, dude. Glad you were such a hard guy back in the day, but 180 degrees up your ***, okay?) Anyway, over the summer I was doing a lot of the things John talks about in those songs, you know. Like down to the baby aspirin, right? Like “Broom People” could have been written about my mom’s house. It’s just this gross house that you’re trying to survive, but then you get a girlfriend and that’s like something you can hold onto. And adults think that’s stupid, but like me and [redacted] really care about each other. And maybe we’re not going to get married and be together for 100 years. But so ******* what?
Anyway, a lot of the songs on the album are kind of about anger or getting even, and you guys are always talking about “unhealthy emotions” and ****, but I’m not even sure you’re right about that. Like last week at church they read this thing where it’s Mary, Jesus’s mom, and she’s like, “God scatters the proud and puts down the mighty and sends the rich away empty.” Like that’s pretty hardcore. She sounds pissed off and she’s basically saying that Jesus is going to settle with everyone who thinks they’re in charge.
And I know what you’d probably say, which is like, “Look how Jesus actually acts.” Like kindness, right? Like he heals some people and tells some stories, but mostly he’s just waiting around to get killed, and then, he’s like forgive, forgive, forgive, right? But first off, like, nobody is forgiving me. I mean, not unless I get on board with your whole thing and go all Eagle Scout class president. But second, that’s kind of my point. Jesus isn’t going around lecturing everybody about their grades and trying to make them fit in and make varsity. He’s just being with people. Like that’s 90% of it. Just being a person like, “I understand what you’re going through.” And maybe he wants them to stop sinning, but first, he’s like, “Okay, first off, no one is not sinning and no one is throwing stones here.”
And that’s kind of what “Pale Green Things” is about, which is the last song on the album and probably my favorite right now. It’s about how after his stepdad died, John was basically glad—or maybe not glad but like relieved—but for the first time he could look back and actually see a good moment they had together. Like you don’t have to get rid of all the bad stuff—the bad stuff you’ve done, the bad stuff you’ve had done to you—you don’t necessarily have to get rid of all that stuff to be okay. Because there’s like this one blade of green grass that’s growing up in the middle of all that. And you don’t even see that it’s there at the time but it’s alive.
So that’s The Sunset Tree. It’s like John saying, “This is what happened to me.” And like that’s what happens to all of us. We are all scared and getting beaten up one way or another. And we are all doing stupid **** to cope with that. And John’s like, let’s just sit together and accept that for a minute. So, if there is a God—and that gets a big IF from me by the way—I guess one way he loves me is that basically all this is ****** and he is going to settle all of it one day. But on the other hand, maybe we’ll look back and we’ll see that, yeah, this all sucks and it’s awful, but maybe there’s something good growing in it too. And maybe that doesn’t make it right or make it worth it, but it’s real and it’s what there is.
