Clean Slate^[1]

The song was released on July 19, 2023, ahead of the album Jenny From Thebes. There is an official lyric video.

Lyrics

One from East St. Louis^[2] with a scar^[3] beneath his eye
Left the kitchen spotless on the day he said goodbye
Breakaway republic^[4] dude, supremely filthy mouth
Copiah, Mississippi^[5] points much further south

It's never light outside yet when they climb into the van
Remember at your peril, forget the ones you can

Leave home feeling empty, change planes in Taipei^[6]
Stay awake the whole time, end up several worlds away
The house was almost full that day, they made a space for you
This world is sad and broken, gotta fix a crack or two

Rest until you're rested, climb back onto the caravan^[7]
Remember at your peril, forget the ones you can

And then just when you think you've learned how to forget
You learn it's just the ones who haven't risen to the surface yet

Absence after absence, keep the place secure
This will be the last time that I do this, I'm pretty sure
No one lasts for long in this profession, so they say
Maybe see you again someday

Every endpoint fixed forever on the day its arc began
Remember at your peril, forget the ones you can
Forget the ones you can

Liner notes

We're proud to reveal "Clean Slate," the first song from our new album, Jenny from Thebes, out October 27 on Merge Records. People like to hedge bets by using terms like "concept album" but let's be clear, this is a rock opera about a woman named Jenny, who buys a Kawasaki to ride as far away as she can from a town she's been carrying on her shoulders too long. "Clean Slate" sets the scene: this is the house Jenny rents; these are the people who crash there when they need a place to stay; this is where she's at in the process of becoming someone other than the keyholder she's been. Produced by Trina Shoemaker! Played by the Mountain Goats at the Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma! Respect to the real pirates of west Texas, still out there on the roads: may you remain one step ahead forever! (Bandcamp, 2023-07-19)

Banter

Thank you very much. I must confirm with Matt Douglas that I'm remembering the chord, so I don't fuck this one up. [plays fucked-up chord, is reminded by Matt] The way it works now is that I write the song and we get to the studio, and Matt's a better pianist than I am, so he plays it. I write it and I never look at it until we're on tour. (2023-08-04 The Rooftop at Pier 17, NYC)
This song is new. [cheering] If you don't know my stuff, I'll explain over the next 15 minutes what this song is about. There was a character on a record called All Hail West Texas named Jenny [cheering]. Her name was Jenny and we know her mainly by her absence. The first song we ever hear of her, she's riding off on a motorcycle with someone on the back of it. It was a Kawasaki 900 in the original draft, but I've revised it for the new album to be a 750 GPZ, because as we all know, that's what she should ride. If I had the choice, it's what I would ride, but I'm too old to buy motorcycles, so. Oh yes I am, I have children. So, we know her mainly by her absence, in the voice of the narrator who misses her and remembers his time with her well, and one thing I don't do is revisit old characters. Another thing I like to do is break my own rules. So I sat down about a year and a half ago and wrote a song and her name popped up, and I said, what if I just did a whole album of that? That is the new record, it's called Jenny From Thebes. And if you're hardcore, her house in the record is the Color in Your Cheeks house. [woo!] And if you're not hardcore, I advise you to go hardcore and stay that way. (2023-08-08 Woodland Park Zoo)
JD: My guitar died. It just went away. [Ben appears] This is Ben, he's come to investigate the situation. [Ben is hailed]
JD: Ben, what do you do for a living? I lick batteries for the Mountain Goats. [laughing, drum fill, guitar works, more cheering]
Peter, Ben has licked the battery and made it feel better. To Peter, I said, what am I gonna do now, and he says, you're playing piano now. So.
Peter: It's alright, Ben was gonna have to lick the battery at some point. [laughing]
JD: Better to get it out of the way. [off mic: Lick the battery sooner?] There's several Ted Nugent album covers that would agree with that general theme. That's what this song is really about. Right, Jon?
Wurster, yelling due to his criminal lack of mic: that's right! (2023-10-02 Belly Up Tavern)
Matt? Let me explain what I'm asking. I would guess that one of the funniest things about being in a band with me is that I will write a song that is pretty good and complex, and I'll do pretty decent with my notes in the studio. And then it will go to the dark place where no one can see the notes. Well. Everyone else can see the notes, but not me. So Matt, which key is my friend in this song? F# is my friend! Not G#. Certainly not Ab. [Peter plays octaves, presumably F#] Little music joke there. G# and Ab are the same key, but I like the sound of Ab better so I will usually call it Ab. I've been trying to learn to call it G#. That's my resolution for the next year. Yes, Matt? Yes. F# is my friend. [Peter plays an F#] This song is about F# and how it is my friend. (2023-10-29 The Heights Theater)
[Isa tunes, JD plays chords] Peter: Ready?
JD: Yeah, just checkin' the bridge. Doing a little bit of covert, very - nobody caught me. I write songs with not even that complex of a bridge, so it should be a little bit of a surprise that I'm the last guy who can memorize it. On this record it was even worse because every song I'd be like, Matt, you're better at piano, you play this. (2023-12-15 - The Bier Hall at Intuition Ale Works, Jacksonville)
I'm never gonna actually do this, but sometimes in the classical world they do do musical encores, but another thing they'll do is come out and bow. And that's what they do, you go see a Broadway show, they don't play another song, they do a curtain call. They come out - and I've thought, that would be the funniest fucking thing a rock band could possibly do. Yeah, no, give us more, okay, [bows]. [audience laughs] The thing you would have to do is like, have a show where people had heard this bit of banter and knew it was gonna happen, so we could all just pantomime it together. Anyway, well, next time. Let's put a pin in that, and then next time we forget to do it, and start playing a song, and they all boo. You forgot! This is on Jenny From Thebes. [plays electric piano chords] This thing, which normally I make them tape over the red because it's so tacky - is called Deep E piano, do we want - I hope you brought a book or something. [different piano sounds] I don't like Grand Lady D, feels sort of essentialist. Studio Grand 2, Black Upright, close. [piano] Romantic upright? [woos!] (2024-05-22 - Roundhouse, London)

Live Performances

Footnotes

^{1. Subtitle: "New arrival at the safehouse"↩}
^{2. East St. Louis is one of the cities mentioned in Color in Your Cheeks. It is located in Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri, and has been in economic decline since the 1950s due to a number of factors. I refer the reader to the city's Wikipedia article for further details.↩}
^{3. "star" (2023-10-07)↩}
^{4. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the polities that seceded were called "breakaway republics", especially those in the Caucasus: Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. Likely a reference to "Soviet Georgia" in the lyrics of Color in Your Cheeks, though the lyric video suggests Latvia.↩}
^{5. A county in Mississippi that was a center of Civil Rights Movement activities in the American South during the 1950s and 1960s. There is an Amtrak station on the line going south to New Orleans. Otherwise not sure why this county other than the meter of it.↩}
^{6. The capital of Taiwan, also mentioned in Color in Your Cheeks.↩}
^{7. "you climb back onto the caravan" (2023-10-29)↩}

Clean Slate[1]

Lyrics

Liner notes

Banter

Live Performances

Footnotes

Clean Slate^[1]