Trivia / the Mountain Goats

• Approval of God: John wrote and performed a song called "The Ultimate Jedi Who Wastes All the Other Jedi and Eats Their Bones", which posits that there is an "ultimate Jedi" in the Star Wars universe who all other Jedi must meet at the end of their lives and who will invariably kill them and eat their bones ("Specifically just their bones, all the soft parts you can keep"). Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson quickly confirmed via Twitter that this was now official Star Wars canon.
• Colbert Bump: The band gets one through their song "No Children" every once in a while. First being used in the season premiere of the final season of Moral Orel, second being on the series finale of the You're the Worst, and finally after going viral on Tik Tok in the summer of 2021.
• Creator Backlash: JD is notoriously harsh on his own work, and thus all but refuses to play some of the old songs. This is particularly notable because one of those songs is Ensemble Dark Horse track "Going to Georgia," which he feels comes a bit too close to endorsing a Stalker with a Crush mentality. It's worth noting, though, that he's been pretty supportive of fans' continued love of it, encouraging them to apply their own interpretation.
  • "Golden Boy" is always followed by a long speech about his hatred for the song.
• Executive Meddling: Averted for two decades and counting.
• Permanent Placeholder: "This Year" was meant to have more lyrics to the chorus - "I am going to make it through this year if it kills me" was just all John Darnielle had come up with at that point. Bassist/backup vocalist Peter Hughes convinced John that the single repeated line would be more effective than a full rhyming chorus.
• Throw It In!: The tape hiss and gear grind of the boombox era. The train passing by at the end of "Insurance Fraud #2."
• What Could Have Been: The aforementioned completed-but-unreleased Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg and West Texas Orphans. Heretic Pride was going to be a concept album entirely about monsters. The album version of "Lovecraft in Brooklyn" was supposed to feature Aesop Rock rapping over the end; Aesop eventually released a remix.
• Word of God: John was quick to clarify that "Marduk T-Shirt Men's Room Incident" was not from the perspective of a rapist.

---