With the title of The Mountain Goats’ upcoming album, All Eternals Deck, reportedly referring to “an apocryphal tarot deck” the most direct way of interpreting John Darnielle’s lyrics of “Damn These Vampires” is to literally think of vampires. He also sings about trans-ams, so combine the two and you’re nearly at an episode of True Blood. However Darnielle often has hidden meanings in his lyrics and these are particularly open for interpretation.
Add to them the subtle blend of delicate brush-stick drums embedded under plucked acoustic guitar, ornate piano chords and even sprinkles of xylophone and you have yourself an understated beauty of a song.
The meaning of the lyrics may not be directly obvious, but whatever the subjects, Darnielle clearly feels strongly about them. “Crawl til dawn on my hands and knees / God damn these vampires for what they’ve done to me,” he sings with beaten down determination in the chorus, like a man who has seen many things but has the basic human desire to live on and see many more.
As an album opener it’s not the kind of song that is likely to prick up your ears from across the room, but given your attention, both the words and the melody will nestle themselves neatly inside your mind and leave you yearning for the rest of the album to continue the story.
01 Damn These Vampires by One Thirty BPM
[“Damn These Vampires” comes from The Mountain Goats’ upcoming album All Eternals Deck coming out on March 29th through Merge]
