hey Robert,
The Mountain Goats are one of my favorite bands. John Darnielle is one of the most incisive lyricists around, and this song used to give me chicken skin whenever I played it. I've actually got this song favorited on my youtube channel and I own most of his records. I like your version mate, very much. Like the way you backed off on the tempo; there's pathos and reflection with your trippiness meter adjusted to a nice level. Excellent job, thanks.
It is very rare that you get a song with a couple of suicides mentioned in it, and the other
motifs that crop up are... Joseph (jealousy and betrayal), Sonny Liston (cheating to win)
and in both of those instances... Joseph turn out to be a ruler in Egypt, and Mohammed Ali
was so enraged that he went on to knock out Liston in the next round.
Then you have Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment who wields his axe and
commits a double murder, then hides the things he has stolen in the ground just
like Achan of old.
The verses are pretty remorseless and it is only the 4 line short bridge that holds out
any hope of redemption. It is a delight the way Darnielle uses small insignificant details
to hint at some bigger truth. He views the human condition from Saul to Kurt, and
perhaps wonders why everything is the same as it ever was.
Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit