Animal Mask

Lyrics

Eighteen-man steel cage free-for-all
Through the noise I hear you call for help
You can't protect yourself
Frog mask and yellow cape
So desperate to escape
I came to you, hands wrapped in adhesive tape
That was when we were young and green
In the dawning hours of our team

Some things you will remember
Some things stay sweet forever

Seen you backstage once or twice
Animal gimmick pops real nice
Elbows sweep and tiger dance
Little extra fighter's chance
"Hold on", I cried, "I'll be right there"
Pull your mask down through your hair
They won't see you
Not until you want them to
That was when we were green and young
Battle cry rising from your tongue

Some things you will remember
Some things stay sweet forever

Banter

In professional wrestling, there's a thing called a battle royale. Sometimes takes place in a cage, so that people won't escape from the battle royale, until they've been knocked right out of it. So, I used to go to the wrestling matches when I was a child. They were not the big money game it is now, it was like, people who needed to stretch their entertainment dollar as far as it could possibly go went to the wrestling matches. And so in a battle royal, allegiances form and dissolve rather quickly, because you're trying to survive and get rid of the people who are against you, and keep the people who are for you on your side, 'cause you're gonna see them later on down the line. And also in wrestling, there's a thing where people try to tear off the masks of people who are trying to hide their identity. This song is about a battle royale and it's also about the labor and delivery room. (2013-07-26 Newport Folk Festival)
There is a type of wrestling match called the battle royale. It's royal because unlike some battles which may just be two people, that's just people fighting, but in the battle royale, everybody has to fight. But only one may emerge victorious from the battle royale. Some of 'em take place in cages, others take place in a ring. But in the battle royale, if you haven't seen one, they put 12-18 people, usually dudes, in a wrestling ring, with or without cage, sometimes with a coal miner's glove on top of a pole, and whoever can get the glove gets to beat the other guys up with it. But the thing I like about the coal miner's glove is that very few people y'know, around, there's plenty of people mining coal, but most of us who go, you know, to see entertainment in a big city, are not actually working in the mines during the daytime. 'Cause at the end of your mining day, you don't go, oh, what will I do and go party now? After your mining day you're very exhausted so you go home and you eat and go to sleep. So, the coal miner's glove is this mysterious thing, you say, oh, I'm gonna hit you with a coal miner's glove, you don't know what, it could just be a regular old glove that you wear. But it sounds scary as hell, and it's a big old gray thing on a pole. And one of these wrestlers will climb up the pole and assault the other wrestlers with a coal miner's glove, or maybe he'll escape with it, it's like a title belt but better, because it's grimy and mysterious. So in the battle royale, 18 guys all start kicking each other's asses all at once as soon as the bell rings. You would almost think it was choreographed the way it goes off, it's really amazing that something horrible doesn't happen, somebody doesn't get grievously injured...but it all seems to go off seamlessly, and one by one, they exit the ring, and allegiances are formed between enemies, between strangers. Allegiances of necessity are formed in the heat of the moment, to emerge victorious. And some of these teams last a lifetime. This is about one such team, formed under the harsh glare of the labor and delivery room. (2015-04-02 - Mercy Lounge, Nashville)
This song is about a fierce battle that took place one day down there at Duke Hospital. (2015-04-07 - Cat's Cradle, Carrboro)
There is a type of wrestling match that you may have wrestled once or twice called a battle royale. [woo!] And the nature of the battle royale is everybody is kicking everybody else's ass all at once. Really it's amazing that, that, it plays out as it does. You would think it would just be mayhem, and everybody would just get hurt. But instead, like one at a time, or sometimes two at a time, the wrestlers are ejected from the ring, and nobody does seem to get hurt, they're all back next week, and the next thing you know, there's only a few people left, really just grappling, urging one another toward victory in a sort of antagonistic way. It's the nature of the game. This is about a battle royale, and it's also about the labor and delivery room. (2015-04-12 - City Winery, New York City)
There's a type of wrestling match where everybody starts kicking everybody else's ass all at once. And you can't even really tell what's going on. Say, well, how would anyone win? It's hard to see the path to victory through all the flying fists and blood and hair and all the stuff that's going on. But eventually, a victor emerges, and then alliances are formed. [cheering!] It sounds like there's reverb in my monitors. And this is called Animal Mask. (2015-04-13 - Union Transfer, Philadelphia)
[Peter appreciation from both audience and JD, which is well deserved after a ripping performance of Cry for Judas] This is about, if you ever wrestled, and been in a battle royale, then you'll already know what it's like, right? You're in there, and there's like 17 other people trying to kick your ass out of the ring, but you did not come to lose. You did not come to go home empty handed. You need to go home with the cash prize. Five hundred dollars for the winner of the battle royale. So you come against the forces that confront you, against, y'know, some local brothers' team who is always kicking everybody's asses, but you clothesline one of them and flip the other one over your shoulders, and then you go on, there's only 15 left. And in quick order you dispatch as many as you can, but you realize you can't do it on your own. You can't do it on your own. You gotta have a partner. You gotta find somewhere in this battle royale, someone who [unintelligible]. And in the heat of the battle, you find this partner. And you lock eyes with them, they're in pain just like you are. Because they've been punched one too many times, they've been thrown to the canvas one too many times. People try to throw you under the ring, but you gotta stay in the ring. This is about that kind of scene. It's also about the labor and delivery room. (2015-04-16 - Bogart's, Cincinnati)
I'm laughing because often, when there's a whole crowd of people who like, they're all there for the Mountain Goats show, for that last chorus [of Woke Up New], I'll often drop out. Stop playing and we can all sing it without instrumentation. But I thought, playing on a stage outdoors, probably a lot of people here who don't know who you are or what you're yelling about, so maybe don't do that part. But my hand went, no, we get a break now, and it totally was like, we don't do this part anymore. You made me do it back when, but now I get to rest. It totally was rebelling, my hand, it was like Evil Dead 2. So there is a thing in wrestling called a battle royale. It's called a battle royale because kings used to do it, is a thing that royalty would do, get into a wrestling ring and struggle. BUt now it's done for profit instead. The battle royale is 12 to 18 wrestlers all in the ring at once, and they all start fighting, and somehow, instead of total chaos, it all goes pretty smoothly. They, one after another, they go out over the top rope, until only a few remain, and then those ones fight it out for supremacy. And it's a heavy, heavy drama. This is about a battle royale and it's also about the labor and delivery room. (2015-05-29 KEXP)
This is a song about how, from the moment of your birth, you don't owe anybody a look at your true face. It's called 'Animal Mask'. (2015-05-29 - The Showbox, Seattle)
I try when I'm explaining new songs to people, I play the same song, but I don't want to be quoting myself night after night. You see us two nights in a row, the same story, you're disheartened by that. But at the same time, if you change up the story radically every time, then you can't actually tell the truth, which is a conflict there, you see, it's very deeply stressful, I'm actually in therapy about it. So this is a song about professional wrestling, and it's about a specific thing called a battle royale. And the battle royale, it's awesome, it's the sport of kings! Everybody gets in the ring together and they all shake hands, then they ring the bell and then everybody all at once starts beating everybody else's ass. And it's, really, it's miraculous, no one seems to be confused by this. They, somehow, they manage to actually make it work instead of it being actual chaos. It's almost as if it's choreographed. and if you go over the top rope, usually, if there's no cage, then you're out. If there's a cage, then the rules get weird, and if you watch old matches, you can tell they haven't quite gotten it down. Sometimes you climb out, old cage matches there's a door to the cage. Your goal is to get out, so you wrestle a guy, maybe he gets hurt, and you head for the door. You open the door, but he grabs you by the leg, and pulls you back in. It's the weirdest thing. Becomes a race to who can run away fastest. Valor. But the battle royal is a long thing with 12 to 18 to 24 people, and you have to form allegiances in that sort of battle. You can't just be for yourself, you have to make friends. And learn who your new friends are and stand by them and trust them amidst the chaos. This song takes place inside a battle royale inside the labor and delivery room. (2015-05-31 - Amoeba Records, San Francisco)
JD: If we're playing a song we've played a couple of times on a tour, I feel weird introducing it sometimes, because I don't, like, memorize my introductions, but if I'm talking about the same song, it's going to run into some similar territory, and then I get anxious about, what if people have been listening to live recordings [hi!] and they already know the story! I gotta figure out some way to tell the story that has some new information in it. But I don't have time to sit and figure it out, so I have to have faith that I'll figure it out. This is a song. [woo! concurring kick drum] About a type of wrestling match. [more woos] There's a lot of kinds of wrestling matches, not just the one where two guys beat each other's asses. There's also, you got a tag team, where there's two over here and two over here, and when one guy gets tired or beat up, or just feels like watching his friend beat somebody up, he tags his hand and his friend comes in, but you gotta go back out, 'cause you can't have two guys from the same team in the ring together in a tag team, that's the rules. A lot of people break the rules, but they shouldn't. So there's a type of match called a battle royale, right, and the battle royale, it's just not an ordinary battle, it's sort of a royal kind of battle, that's why they called it the battle royale. They thought about it, should we call it the normal people battle? the pedestrian battle? the working-class battle? No!
Peter: It's like a monarchist battle.
JD: Yes! It is! It's a sort of - only kings can truly appreciate the battle royale. But! It's for us too. We get to enjoy the battle royale too, which is 18 guys just kicking each other's asses all at once. And it's mayhem, if you see one as a child which I did, you - if you get thrown over the top rope you lose, and eventually there's only one left, and it makes sense in theory to you. And then when the bell rings, it's 18 giant sweaty guys just wailing on each other. And you think, well, there's gotta be some sort of choreography here, otherwise everybody'd just get punched and pass out, which would also be awesome. But anyways, in the battle royale, allegiances are formed out of necessity. You can't be a man alone in the battle royale. No, you have to make friends. You have to make new friends, maybe people you used to be at war with, you have to become friends with, temporarily. In the state of battle, you have to have somebody on your side in the battle royale, for anybody to win. This is a song about a battle royale and the labor and delivery room. (2015-06-01 - The Fillmore, San Franciso)
In or around 1981 down the street, literally down the street from here, I saw a battle royale. [woo, bass noises, etc] Now you might say, oh that must involve kings wrestling one another. No, it's different. Not that sort of royalty. It's really unclear where the term royal enters the battle royale. I'll figure it out one of these days. The battle royale involves putting a bunch of wrestlers in the ring all at once, then ringing the bell, and then they have at it and wail on each other. It looks, just, so chaotic that you can't even believe that someone's not getting hurt, it's almost like someone scripted it or something. [laughter] You know, they just wail and wail and throw each other over the top rope until there's only a few left, but even when there's a few left it's still kinda mayhem, because only one can survive the battle royal. Except for the one I saw at the Olympic, Chavo Guerrero and Andre the Giant [more cheering] were the last two standing. And in one of my favorite moments of all time, because Chavo was the local good guy and Andre was just - everybody in the world loved Andre the Giant. So they each flipped their opponent over and they turned to each other, who else do I have to kick out to win this battle, and they saw it was each other and began to circle each other. The whole crowd was going, oh my god, Chavo can't beat this guy, this guy's like nine feet tall. But something's gonna happen and they looked at each other and, at the exact same moment, again, as if it had been planned [laughter]. They extended a hand to each other and raised their hands, to share their victory. [raucous cheering] This song is also about a battle royale, that takes place in the labor and delivery room, and it is about shared victories. (2015-06-03 - The Mayan, Los Angeles)
So, one tiresome thing that singer-songwriters do, is, well they will have a child, and then inside of a year and a half, release an album telling you about their insights about parenthood. And I have always, since I was a child thought, what do you even know? You started writing this record before the child could even stand up, and you're gonna tell me what it's like, I think it's cynical. So, I've had this attitude problem about the whole thing my whole life, and then, I had a child. Now, I am not going to make the 'John's Insights About Parenthood' album, because there are so many of those by singer-songwriters that that corner is already worked. But if you think that a songwriter sitting around with a baby around the house, not sleeping at all, and the baby's very cute, doesn't eventually toss off one or two about the baby, then you have another thing coming. However, me being me, I framed the whole thing in the context of a wrestling match, uh, usually it's a very long story. Uh, the battle royal is a type of wrestling match. It's a greater match than others. In fact, it's a royal match. That's why it's called the battle royal. It's not your daily quotidian battle. It's royal. The battle royal, we think, was originated by kings, although its origins are shrouded in mystery. Uh, but in the battle royal, everybody beats up everybody else at once, right. You put about eighteen wrestlers in the ring and like, they just all start going completely ape on each other. You would almost think that they had gotten together and choreographed it ahead of time. It just - it goes so swimmingly as you can't believe. It's like, wow, to think that this is just actually being improvised right there in - wow, who could imagine, who could imagine. But, uh, in the battle royal, you go over the top rope, if you get thrown over, you're out. And eventually, only one will remain. And in the space of this heated battle, a lot of alliances are formed in the heat of the moment. You make friends with people you've never seen before to help you overcome obstacles and demons in your path. So this is about a battle royal, and it's also about the labor and delivery room, and it's called 'Animal Mask' (2015-09-12)
Thing happens in professional wrestling - doesn’t happen in college wrestling. Or high school wrestling, either. A thing where a guy shows up with a mask. At high school a lot of that plays down. But some guys have masks and you don’t know who they are, cause they guard their mask zealously, right? And there’s this incredibly intimate moment that happens multiple times in the career of every masked wrestler where somebody succeeds in pulling his mask off. This can go two ways: one is everybody who sees the person that they didn’t know was under the mask and identifies them correctly, as maybe a good guy or a bad guy. The scene I always had as a kid was they pull off the mask, and you have no idea who that guy is. It’s like “oh… well, there he is!”. This song is about masked wrestling and it takes place in the labor and delivery room. (2023-10-10)

Animal Mask

Lyrics

Banter

Live Performances

Footnotes