The Mountain Goats' "Lovecraft in Brooklyn"

The Mountain Goats, an active folk rock and lo-fi musical band for nearly twenty years, has recently released a new album entitled "Heretic Pride." Of greatest interest here, however, is one song in particular on the CD: the intriguing performance "Lovecraft in Brooklyn." Indeed, the lyrics and style comprise a musically accurate portrayal of H.P. Lovecraft's well known torturous years spent in New York City. During this period, Lovecraft languished in a weird, unhappy marriage, and saw his incipient racism soar to a boiling point. His strong feelings of revulsion stirred by immigrant masses and the Cyclopean size of the great metropolis served as a mental basis for "The Horror at Red Hook" and "Cool Air." The city left HPL with deep impressions well until the end of his life, most vividly expressed in the racial undertones and anxious fears of the famous tale, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth."

The Mountain Goats' brief piece does a decent job of translating Lovecraft's strange New York exile into a musical story. A gritty recording of a live performance of this song may be viewed in this Youtube clip. The lyrics also follow below, for those unable to understand the words in the video performance, or find the song through the usual channels:

Gonna be too hot to breath today
But everybody is out here on the streets
Somebody has opened up the fire hydrant
Cold water rushing out in sheets

Some kid in a Marcus Allen jersey
Asks me for a cigarette
Companionship is where you find it
So I take what I can get

Lovecraft on the Car Length fun house mirrors
Lovecraft in Brooklyn

Well the sun goes down
The armies of the voiceless
Several Hundred-thousand strong
Come without their bandages
Their voices raised in songs
When the street lights sputter out
They make this awful sizzling sound

I cast my gaze towards the pavement
Too many blood stains on the ground
Rhode Island drops into the Ocean
No place to call home anymore
Lovecraft in Brooklyn

Head outside most everyday to try to keep the wolves away
In every set of self if copenation come

Woke up afraid of my own shadow
Like, Genuinely afraid
headed for the pawnshop
To buy myself a switchblade
Someday somethings coming
From way out beyond the stars
To kill us while we stand here
It will store our brains in mason jar
And then the girl behind the counter asks "How do you feel today?" and I say "I feel like Lovecraft in Brooklyn!"

-Grim Blogger