When the Mountain Goats’ The Sunset Tree came out a couple months ago, I was a bit disappointed — seemed a little dull. But another listen on the road back from Louisiana Monday made me revise that review: It’s no Tallahassee, sure, but it’s still quite affecting.
Here head Goat John Darnielle does a haiku-only interview about the album, song by song. It’s a silly conceit, but kinda funny, particularly when John’s answers start getting a little uppity with the 5-7-5-spouting interviewer. When asked to explain the central image of “Magpie”: “Only a traitor / undresses his metaphors / As if they were whores.” When asked if one song describes a youthful “escape” from pain into music: “All interviewers / Seem to like this word ‘escape’ / For this song: me, less.”
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Joshua Benton is the director of the Nieman Digital Journalism Project at Harvard University, among other things. Before that, he was a staff writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News. (More.)
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