The Mountain Goats Trivia Quiz

Answer: The man has a gun

"I have two big hands and a heart pumping blood and a 1967 Colt .45 with a busted safety catch."

So instead of being a love song, this song might actually be about a psychopath planning to murder his true love. But when he sees her, he feels so much better and abandons that plan, as the second verse suggests. Some people think that the narrator wasn't going to kill his true love, he was going to kill himself and seeing his true love saved him.

"Going to Georgia" is on the Mountain Goats' debut album "Zopilote Machine." It is one of many "Going to..." songs that John Darnielle has written. Other such songs include "Going to Kansas," "Going to Maryland," "Going to Cleveland," and "Going to France."

They used to play this song live quite often, but recently, John Darnielle has said that he won't play it anymore. He claims that he has become a feminist and now he hates the man in this song. However, in 2016, an audience member paid him $60 just to play this song, and apparently he did.

Answer: The Killers

I used to listen to this song and think "Uh, Killers is already taken. In fact they're a very successful band." Then I learned that this song came out in 2002, two years before The Killers released their debut album. Plus, this song is told in flashback, a story that happened some time in the past. So the story of this song takes place even earlier than that.

This song is about two boys, Jeff and Cyrus, who tried to form a death metal band. This made Cyrus's parents mad, so they sent Cyrus to boarding school to keep him away from Jeff and this band never materialized.

The most important line in this song is "When you punish a person for dreaming his dream don't expect him to thank or forgive you." The most popular phrase in this song is "HAIL SATAN!" When the Mountain Goats play this song live, John Darnielle sings that phrase only once. The audience does the rest of the work.

Marduk isn't one of the three band names mentioned in this song. They're mentioned in a song on "Heretic Pride."

Answer: No Children

This is possibly the most popular Mountain Goats song ever. I think the lyrics speak for themselves. The alpha male is really, REALLY angry. You've got the singer screaming lyrics that are about as dark as it gets, but you've also got the calm relaxing piano in the background. This dissonance makes this song hilarious, which is likely why it's their most popular song.

Here's a strange fact. The Mountain Goats stopped playing "Going to Georgia" in 2012 (except for one show in 2016 when a fan paid John Darnielle to play it) because according to John Darnielle, the man in that song is a psychopath and as a feminist Darnielle can no longer identify with that man. The man in "No Children" is a bigger psychopath, so going by that logic he shouldn't be playing "No Children" either.

Answer: Mark

John Darnielle has written many songs with titles that are Bible references.

In the book of Mark, there is a man living in a graveyard who is possessed by a thousands of demons. For years, no one could help this man. Then Jesus came to him and cast all the demons out of him. The demons begged Jesus to send them into the pigs. Jesus allowed the demons to do as they asked. So the demons went into the pigs. Then the pigs ran into the water and drowned.

This song is on the 2004 album "We Shall All Be Healed" which is one of my favorite albums ever. It's a concept album, where all of the songs are about drugs. John Darnielle used a lot of meth when he was younger, as did a lot of his friends. Many of his friends died from this. He survived. This song takes place shortly after Darnielle got out of rehab. He feels that rehab cleaned him up, just like Jesus cleaned up the demon-possessed man in Mark. The message of this song is "I'm clean and I will stay clean." Darnielle really did come from Chino, which is a rough city known for jails and drugs, but he rose above all of it and it made him a tough person. Claremont is a rehab center outside of Chicago. So if Darnielle has to go to rehab to stay clean, he will.

Answer: This Year

"I played video games in a drunken haze I was 17 years young, hurt my knuckles punching the machines, the taste of scotch rich on my tongue." "I drove home in the California dusk. I could feel the alcohol inside of me."

"The Sunset Tree" album is about John Darnielle's stepfather. Judging by the lyrics to these song, John Darnielle's stepfather was a horrible, abusive man. In "This Year" John Darnielle is basically saying that he must put up with his stepfather's abuse for one more year. Then he'll be 18 and he can move out and celebrate his freedom.

This song is likely the Mountain Goats' 2nd most popular song after "No Children" due to its catchy singalong chorus and the fact that the lyrics are relatable for a lot of people.

Answer: Woke up New

"The first time I made coffee for just myself, I made too much of it. But I drank it all because you hate it when I let things go to waste."

"Woke up New" is about a man whose wife just divorced him. The man has gone crazy and he can't adjust to life without her. A lot of the songs on "Get Lonely" seem to be about this man's life without his wife, but oddly, John Darnielle has said that "Get Lonely" isn't a break-up album. It's just an album about loneliness in general. "Woke up New" is definitely a break-up song though, and possibly the best one you'll ever hear in my opinion.

"Woke up New" is one of the Mountain Goats' most popular songs ever. This is probably because the chorus is catchy and because it's a song a lot of people can relate to.

Answer: In the Craters on the Moon

"In The Craters on the Moon" is my favorite song on the 2008 album "Heretic Pride." The Mountain Goats have played this song live many times, and John Darnielle has given several different introductions to this song. The album version of this song has violins, and they are part of what makes the song so great. When they do it live, there are no violins. When it gets to the climax, you have to listen closely to the bass line because only Peter Hughes is playing the part you remember from the album.

Answer: San Bernadino

Actually technically the "flaming sword" is mentioned actually in "Genesis 3:24" in some bible versions but that's close enough.

The Mountain Goats' song titles rarely appear in their lyrics, and "Life of the WQorld to Come" is no exception. Out of those 12 songs, in only three of them does any part the actual Bible verse appear in the lyrics ("Psalms 40:2," "Romans 10:9," and "Isaiah 45:23"). Part of the challenge of listening to the Mountain Goats is figuring out how the title relates to the lyrics. The song "Genesis 3:23" seems to be about a man breaking into a house he used to live in and enjoying the feeling of familiarity in all the rooms he goes into, then leaving and covering his tracks so no one would know he was there. He's not allowed there anymore just like Adam and Eve aren't allowed in the Garden of Eden anymore.

"San Bernardino," from the "Heretic Pride" album, is a song about a young unmarried couple having a baby in a motel room. I am guessing the "Flaming swords" line means that they aren't supposed to experience the joy of having a baby when they are unmarried

Answer: Jenny

"Jenny" is a character mentioned in three different songs. She was introduced in the song "Straight Six" in the EP "Jam Eater Blues." She became more popular among fans when she became the name of a song on one of the Mountain Goats' most popular albums: "All Hail West Texas." That song is a fun, uplifting love song, most memorable for the refrain: "The pirate's life for me!" She comes back one more time ten years later on the 2012 album "Transcendental Youth." Specifically she appears in my favorite song on that album, "Night Light."

The only time where the man actually sees Jenny is in the song "Jenny." In the other two songs she's only calling on the phone. John Darnielle has said that Jenny is the character who is never around during the good times. She is only remembered during the bad times. John Darnielle says that there is a person like Jenny in everyone's life. Fans seem to agree with him.

Answer: Rain in Soho

"Rain in Soho" is a song on the 2017 album "Goths." This song seems to be about the closing of the Batcave, which used to be a nightclub in London and it was considered a birthplace of Goth culture. The "lone wolf" is likely someone who used to go to that club all the time, but now that the club has closed down, no one knows what has become of him.

This song is memorable for having a choir in the background. When they play this song live, the choir isn't really needed because the whole audience sings the backing "No no no no" lyrics that occur often in the song. The first time I heard this song, it immediately became one of my top five favorite songs of this groups career that consists of more than 20 albums and EPs.