Cotton
Lyrics
This song is for the rats
Who hurled themselves into the ocean
When they saw that the explosives in the cargo hold
Were just about to blow
This song is for the soil
That's toxic clear down to the bedrock
Where no thing of consequence can grow
Drop your seeds there
Let them go
Let them all go
Let 'em all go
This song is for the people
Who tell their families that they're sorry
For things they can't and won't feel sorry for
And once there was a desk
And now it's in a storage locker somewhere
And this song is for the stick pins and the cottons
I left in the top drawer
Let 'em all go
Let 'em all go
I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving
And something has got to give
I saw you waiting by the roadside
You didn't know that I was watching
Now you know
Let it all go
Let 'em all go
Let it all go
Banter
- This is a song about, um, a bunch -- well, an infinite number of people, uh, that's the nature of these people, is they have a replacement rate, usually about one to one. Somebody either gets better or vanishes into, uh, the system, or the Earth, and is replaced by somebody who looks exactly like him. It's sort of a, sort of a Body Snatchers kind of situation, but nobody's body actually gets snatched, they just sort of go places. Uh, jail. Rehab. Mom's house, for a while. Ever since Mom took sick leave, she's got access to all kinds of good pills. (2009-11-28 Theater of Living Arts)
- This is a song about things that you infuse too much of yourself into so that when you have to see them destroyed, or forget where they went, it gets to count as a greater loss than it otherwise might have. If you suffer from a certain type of neurosis-slash-mental-illness, this is a very appealing process to you, i.e. me. (2010-09-09 Koko)
- This is a song off of - people ask whether you nurse grievances. I try not to. But I do remember the Pitchfork review of this album. It was 2004 and we were very proud of our new album. The Pitchfork reviewer who really liked old Mountain Goats was less stoked. And he made his displeasure known. I disagreed with him then and I disagree with him now. The album is called We Shall All Be Healed. And this is one of the songs where I was like, c'mon, we did something kind of different, but all you hear is now there's piano and you're mad. (2019-04-30 Brooklyn Steel)
Live Performances
Footnotes