This is Sparta.
I’ve only got the one recording of the Mountain Goats’ “Black Molly.” It’s from Bitter Melon Farm. He’s singing in some dive bar somewhere, you realize, hearing crowd noise bubbling under the tape hiss. The sound of the guitar chords is degraded enough that they slash and ring like bells, and he’s belting out the lyrics in that adenoidal whine he saves for the angry songs, the one that’s either powerful, or the reason you don’t listen much to the Mountain Goats—
black mollies in the aquarium,
darting back and forth as though an earthquake were certain
and I turned up the heater
and I ripped off my shirt
and I grabbed hold of my stereo
and I threw it out the window
you were in town
again
—and this is the chorus; he’s stretching that word “town” out past any normal limit—
you’d come around
again
—and again, with “around,” and you can hear what he’s doing to his voice, punishing it with this song, and I know why half the time when I’ve seen him live, and why on most of the bootlegs I’ve got lying around on my harddrive he usually stops somewhere in the set and says if he goes on, if he sings “Going to Georgia” or “No Children” the way the crowd wants, he’s not going to have any voice left for tomorrow, in Eugene or Olympia or San Francisco.
you were dragging me down again with you
“Fuck Eugene!” somebody usually says. And sometimes he sings what the crowd wants. Sometimes he doesn’t. The crowds have been getting pushier, lately. And larger. But this time nobody’s calling for anything, because he’s still singing “Black Molly”—
siamese fish flashing like sparklers
it started to rain
and the telephone rang a couple of times
I put a bullet through its cold dead brain
and I got out my photographs of you
and I put bullets though all of them too
you were
—and here, in this recording, the crowd noise boils over in cheers and whoops, applause even, as he lifts and pulls his voice to some triumphantly broken point—
in town
again
you’d come around
again
you were dragging me down again with you
yeah
And maybe it’s the release in his voice they’re cheering? That sudden savage joy that fills you when you finally give up and stop worrying and fall into the fact that you’re going down? That you know, you finally know there’s nothing you can do?
I’d like to think so. But somebody starts the cheer with the bullets, the ones that go through every photograph of her he’s got.
Heidi posted a mashup poster for The 40-Year-Old Spartan, and I chuckled and followed the link and there were enough other goofy mashups there that I emailed it on to a couple of friends who’re the sort to chuckle at that sort of thing. LOLSpartans. You know. And I didn’t think anything more of it until one of them emailed me back. “Those images are really great,” she said, “but those message board quotes, though probably hyperbolic, give me the serious wiggins.”
Message board quotes?
Sure, there was text, but I hadn’t read it. I’d assumed it was just there to frame the funny pictures. Who has time for that? —So I went back to the site. “To say that you’d have to be living under a rock to not know about all the hype surrounding 300 would be an enormous understatement,” it begins.
The movie’s hype has taken on absolutely absurd proportions, to the extent that it just had to be documented on WTFsrsly…
On forums you find posts about crazy 300-related stories such as this one by SmithX on the IGN boards:
And it ends like this—
The hype has turned into madness! (I’m refraining from making a “madness” joke here) The past month there have been many threads (some that had nothing to do with the movie) that randomly derailed into posts screaming “THIS IS SPAARTHAAA!”. Meanwhile, people are hard at work doing these hilarious 300 photo manips:
And then the mashups. But the message board quotes? The crazy 300-related stories posted to demonstrate that the hype’s absolutely absurd?
Here’s the first one:
Well i found out someone i know is in alot of trouble today, he was drunk in a club and there was a girl dancing by some stairs so he went up to her…..................... Kicked her down the stairs shouting this is SPARTA
Here’s the second:
We had all lined up in front of the theater for about 30 minutes, and then they brought us in. I had to stand right beside these two fat, horse-faced lesbians eating each other tongues like they were making a political statement or something. So, like 30 minutes later, we end up shuffling in the theater and these bitches start bitching about having to wait when the movie is about to start and it turns out they were going to see that Jim Carrey movie 23 and they were missing it. So, the ugliest of the two just exclaims like there’s nobody there “This is the wrong fucking movie!”. I just had to do what I did next. I shouted at the top of my lungs “This is SPARTA” and kicked her in the chest, causing her to fall down about 8 steps to the floor. Most were shocked but about 80% of the theater started to cheer as I was forcibly thrown out by 2 officers. Charges are going to be pressed against me apparently, but it was worth it.
And that’s it; those are your examples of crazy 300-related stories that demonstrate the hype has taken on absolutely absurd proportions. —Are they true?
Does it matter?
I don’t know if John Darnielle sings “Black Molly” live all that often. Is it an old favorite now mostly retired from the setlist? (He’s sick to death of “Going to Georgia,” and you can’t really blame him.) An old obscurity, dredged up now and again for the fans who’ve been with him since the cassette days? I don’t know. I’ve seen the Mountain Goats a number of times, and he only ever did “Black Molly” once. Was it the last time we saw him at the Doug Fir? Or the time before that? I’m not sure. Did somebody specifically ask for “Black Molly”? I don’t remember. But I do remember how he sang it. —The other thing I remember from that show, that sticks clearly in my head, is how he sang “Game Shows Touch Our Lives,” his voice lifting a little from the hushed falsetto he saves for the reflective songs, “People say friends don’t destroy one another,” and then Peter joined him and they punched the next line, “What do they know about friends?” the way he punches “Hand in unlovable hand” when he sings “No Children” or “Take your foot off of the brake, for Christ’s sake” when he sings “Dilaudid,” except really that’s more of a strangled yelp, isn’t it. —Damaged people damaging each other. The savage joy that fills you when you let go. Apocalyptic. “Black Molly” begins like that.
“Black Molly” began like that, yeah, there in the dark crammed basement of the Doug Fir, but it started at a yelp and climbed from there, and the crowd all around was starting to grin when he threw the stereo out the window, and there was a whoop when he stretched that first “town” out on a rack, but it was only one whoop. And then the phone rang a couple of times, and he shot it, and then he pulled out the photographs, and there were more whoops, and he put bullets through all of them too, and the crowd started cheering and applauding, just like it does on the Bitter Melon version I’ve got, well before the song is over, yeah!
Why?
I’d like to say it’s the savage joy. It’s the release. You’re coming around again, to drag me down again, and there’s a certain exhilaration in giving up to that, the top of the emotional rollercoaster thrill. —But I could just make out their faces in the dark and even if I couldn’t I could hear it in their voices. The crowd was cheering the rage, however impotently expressed. The crowd wanted the bullets, and the bullet holes in the photographs, and. The crowd smelled blood. —And I know why he’s angry, but it’s not why they’re cheering, and I was left standing there, outside the concert, outside the song, my stomach cold, thinking of screwflies.
Hey, I have goosebumps.
THIS IS FUCKING SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~!!!!!!!!!!
Black Molly
http://edp.tumblr.com/post/122737435/the-mountain-goats-black-molly-recorded-at