Foreign Object

Lyrics

Whipped like a dog, down on the cards
Square in the spotlight sweating real hard
All soaked in blood like a newborn babe
Sharp thing hidden in my hand shaped like an astrolabe

Gonna stick^[1] you in the eye with a foreign object
Gonna poke^[2] you in the eye with a foreign object

March through the red mist, never get my vision clear
Learn to love this kind of atmosphere
Strike funny^[3] poses, keep my weapon hand low
Whip my head around a little, get blood on the front row

Gonna jab^[4] you in the eye with a foreign object
I personally will^[5] stab you in the eye with a foreign object^[6]
Foreign object, foreign object, foreign object

Sink my teeth into your scalp, take a nice big bite
Save nothing for the cameras, play the angles all night
One of these days my legs will both snap like twigs
If you can't beat 'em make 'em bleed like pigs

I'm gonna jab^[7] you in the eye with a foreign object
I'm gonna stab you in the eye^[8] with a foreign object

Ba, ba da da, ba ba ba da, foreign object
Ba, ba da da, ba ba ba da, foreign object
Ba, ba da da, ba ba ba da, foreign object

Banter

• This is a song about how I, John Darnielle, am gonna stab you in the eye [cheering] with a foreign object. [more cheering] It's called....... Foreign Object. (2015-04-02 - Mercy Lounge, Nashville)
• This is a song about how when you least expect it, when you're feeling that things are going well for you, you might turn around and find that I have come up behind you, and will surely stab you in the eye with a foreign object. (2015-04-04 - The Jinx, Savannah)
• This is a song about how I am going to stab you in the eye with a foreign object. (2015-04-07 - Cat's Cradle, Carrboro)
• I should like to welcome to the stage. The Horns of Terror. This right here is a song about how I am going to come up to you when you least expect it, and stab you, in the eye, with a foreign object. The song is called.....Foreign Object. (2015-04-09 - Webster Hall, NYC)
• There's parts of every record you don't hear, because we cut them off before they go to press. Spoken intros are the main thing. 'Cause if a record has a spoken intro for every track, that's cloying. Nobody needs that, 'cause everybody would know, you could have taken that off, but you decided to leave a bit of studio patter. But I will tell you that, on the rough mix I have of this song, probably about the 5th take of the song that day, I say, [announcer voice] 'We're going to poke you in the eye! With a foreign object! By the Mountain Goats!' (2015-04-11 - City Winery, New York City)
• [tuning] So this here is a song, well, this is tuning. We're gonna get done tuning. [continues tuning, bari sax honks] It's a song about how when a wrestler has a weapon, if you watch high school wrestling, or college wrestling, you may think that usually they don't have weapons. And that's true, but that's because they're still in high school and college. They haven't really leveled up to the real wrestling. They're still learning. They can't be trusted with weapons yet. Only the professional wrestler is really equipped to handle a weapon, you know, like a - I say 'like a' because you never know what it is, because they don't - It's not very scary if you say, 'Oh my god, he's got a pencil.' How bad - he'll take your pencil away, now you'll have no weapon. So the announcers found a way around this, back when. They would say, 'Oh no, Bad News Kowaji is coming back into the ring, and he's carrying - a foreign object. Well, that's a little more threatening than a pencil, isn't it. You don't even know what that, where a foreign object is from. You just know it's from someplace else. This song is called Foreign Object. (2015-04-12 - City Winery, NYC)
• I don't know if this is true for you all, but Peter and me grew up east of Los Angeles, about 50 miles. The thing about that is that you grow up with a severe inferiority complex. All the cool stuff is going on 50 miles inland, and nobody has any respect for where you're from, but you actually have some cool shit going on where you're from, but nobody wants to show any respect to that. And I always wondered whether towns that were in spitting distance of, say, New York had the same complex that we had. But I mean to tell you, and I have experience with this since 1997, Philadelphia audiences are among the best in the world. We appreciate you. [kick drum and bass noises] I can't shed my guitar because I was skipping the next song on the set list. It is not time to shed my guitar. [off mic unintelligible] This is a song about how you may think we are wrestling by the rules, but when you turn around, I am going to stab you in the eye with a foreign object. This song is called Foreign Object. (2015-04-13 - Union Transfer, Philadelphia)
• This, on the other hand, is a song about how I, John Darnielle, am going to stab you, no matter who you are, in the eye, with a foreign object. (2015-04-16 - Bogart's, Cincinnati)
• I've been waiting since I wrote this song to play this song here. As you may or may not know, we are in the Michigan territory. [woo!] It's not the same as being in Michigan, it's the Michigan and Northern Indiana territory. In wrestling in the 70s, it was run by a guy named Ed Farhat, who wrestled under the name 'The Sheik', not the Iron Sheik, the Sheik. [more woos] He pioneered an artless kind of wrestling that just involved a lot of blood and cutting people up. A worthwhile art to pursue, right? He's actually the boss of the territory, but he never broke character publicly. He was The Sheik, and he ran this town, and Northern Indiana, and he was renowned for bringing, what they called, in a term that was very mystifying to a young boy, a foreign object. 'cause if the announcer says, you know, he's got a ballpoint pen, that doesn't sound terribly threatening. But if he says, oh no, the Sheikh has got a foreign object, that sounds pretty scary. This song is about what happens when you come face to face with a foreign object. (2015-04-17 - The Majestic, Detroit)
• The other song is about this sort of loneliness that eats away at your mind from inside until you're a shadow of your former self and then you try to draw pictures of your former self to see what he looked like and see if you remember, see if you can conjure him up through late nighttime sessions. This isn't that song. This is a song about stabbing somebody in the eye with a foreign object. It’s called Foreign Object. (2015-04-19 - First Avenue, Minneapolis)
• Every so often when you travel through this world, you may see a person and you say, as sure as I am standing here, and by the holy name of the god that made me, I'm gonna stab that person in the eye with a foreign object. This song is about that feeling. We call it....Foreign Object. (2015-04-22 - The Wexner Center, Columbus)
• Man, I am totally not trying to butter you up, but I love Pittsburgh so fuckin' much. [woo!] It is therefore not without some small sense of regret that I tell you that I am going to stab you in the eye with a foreign object. (2015-04-23 - Mr. Smalls, Millvale)
• This is a song about how when the time comes, and the hour is right, the one we've been waiting for, you and I, for some time. When that hour draws near, you'll look at me and say, he's gonna stab me in the eye! [cheering] With a foreign object! (2015-05-29 - The Showbox, Seattle)
• This here is a song about how, in the fullness of time, you know, when… when all things have been brought to their maturity, and the moment is upon us where we can see… that the time has come. And we know, that us, we’ll share a special moment together. When that time comes, then I… am going to stab you… [audience clues in; cheers erupt]… in the eye. With a foreign object.’ (2015-10-03)
• "This is a song about how, probably at some point in your life and mine, we will meet up, and then I will stab you in the eye... with a foreign object. That's why the song is called Foreign Object." (2016-09-02)
• "This is a song about how I, the Bloomington Bruiser, 205 pounds of raw Indiana muscle, will walk directly up to you, without any fear of repercussions from the officials, or the crowd, or from the game itself, and stab you in the eye with a foreign object." (2017-11-11)
• You don't cut out people. People say to me, well, you tell these stories, John, but when are you really going to share your most intimate feelings? When are you really gonna get real with it and tell us how you feel about something, really get into your emotions? Matt, you know what they say, if you bottle up your emotions sooner or later they're, they'll all come to getcha, you gotta let 'em out. So I sat down one day, I gotta do this thing, I have to get real with people, I have to get real with myself. I have to tell them the truth. About how one day, one day in the very near future, I am gonna stab you. I'm gonna stab you. (2023-10-28 Longhorn Ballroom)

Live Performances

• 2015-04-02 - Mercy Lounge, Nashville (recording)
• 2015-04-03 - The Grey Eagle, Asheville
• 2015-04-04 - The Jinx, Savannah (recording)
• 2015-04-06 - Late Night with Seth Meyers (recording
• 2015-04-07 - Cat's Cradle, Carrboro (recording)
• 2015-04-08 - 9:30 Club, Washington DC
• 2015-04-09 - Webster Hall, NYC (recording, with Horns of Terror)
• 2015-04-11 - City Winery One on One (recording, JD and Matt duo)
• 2015-04-11 - City Winery, New York City (recording)
• 2015-04-12 - City Winery, New York City
• 2015-04-13 - Union Transfer, Philadelphia
• 2015-04-14 - House of Blues, Boston
• 2015-04-16 - Bogart's, Cincinnati (recording)
• 2015-04-17 - The Majestic, Detroit (video)
• 2015-04-18 - The Vic, Chicago
• 2015-04-19 - First Avenue, Minneapolis
• 2015-04-21 - Headliners, Louisville
• 2015-04-22 - The Wexner Center, Columbus (recording)
• 2015-04-23 - Mr. Smalls, Millvale (recording)
• 2015-05-08 - Shaky Knees Festival, Atlanta
• 2015-05-26 - Gothic Theatre, Denver
• 2015-05-27 - Urban Lounge, Salt Lake City (recording)
• 2015-05-29 - The Showbox, Seattle (recording)
• 2015-05-30 - Wonder Ballroom, Portland OR
• 2023-10-28 Longhorn Ballroom (encore, with Kyle Leonard)

Footnotes