The Mountain Goats were on Letterman wednesday night. This is a new song from their forthcoming album All Eternals Deck. It’s a very good song called “Birth of Serpents”.
let the camera pull back till the fulness of the frame is clear and plain
peer into the screen until you see it all like a vision in a crystal ball
let it all fill with smoke
is this somebody’s idea of a joke?let the fixer work till the silver’s washed away and take a picture from the tray
look hard at what you see and remember you and me
and let the truth spring free like a jack in the box
like a hundred thousand cuckoo clocksfrom the Oregon corners to the Iowa corn
to the rooms with the heat lamps where the snakes get borncrawl through the tunnel and follow, follow the light northwest
see that young man who dwells inside his body like an uninvited guest
see the tunnel twist
clutch your birthright in your fistlet the camera do its dirty work down there in the dark
sink low, rise high, bring back some blurry pictures to remember all your darker moments by
permanent bruises on our knees
never forget what it felt like to live in rooms like thesefrom the California coastline to the Iowa corn
to the rooms with the heat lamps where the snakes get born