Fresh Tattoo
Data
Fresh Tattoo was released on August 23, 2023. There is an official lyric video.
Lyrics
Tattoo of the seventh shield
Still wet on my skin
You're all crumpled up at the curb there
I think I'm going to take you in*
Always had to follow my instincts
Usually I'm out on my own
You there by the road, wet and helpless
What happens if I take you home?
Well, you may forget the whys and wheres
Of an old tattoo on your forearm there
But usually you recall the day you got one
And usually it fades in the sun
Headed for a season in exile
As the oracle predicted
According to reliable sources
In thirty days I'm getting evicted
Trying not to scratch where it itches
It takes a certain level of discipline
Not even half a second by the light switch
Let the future flood right in
Well, you may forget the whys and wheres
Of an old tattoo on your forearm there
But usually you recall the day you got one
And usually it fades in the sun
Usually the lines grow faint
Like old house paint
Just a way to mark the years gone by
You lay on the couch three weeks
Until the color came back into your cheeks
I'd seen ones like you before
Plenty came through before
Legend on the shield in Greek**
"What's that say?" you said
I gave you an answer that I thought you'd buy
All of this will disappear in the twinkling of an eye
Well, you may forget the whys and wheres
Of an old tattoo on your forearm there
But usually you recall the day you got one
And usually it fades in the sun
But not this one
Liner notes
- The second single, "Fresh Tattoo," off our forthcoming album Jenny from Thebes (out Oct 27) is out now. Been wanting to share this one since the day I finished writing it, back when it was just piano and voice. But it's so much better with my band playing it, and Alicia Bognanno, and Matt Nathanson on some of the sweetest vocal harmonies ever. It's the flashpoint of the Jenny story: here she takes in her last lodger, here she marks her skin to say she's done taking in lodgers after this. Produced by Trina Shoemaker at the Church in Tulsa: enjoy! (Bandcamp, 2023-08-23)
Banter
- JD: (off mic) Peter Hughes, what are we playing next?
Peter: (off mic, sounding surprised) Fresh Tattoo!
JD: (off mic) He'll tell ya! (back on mic) I got so excited when I wrote this song. Because it took like two days, three. If you listen to old mountain goats songs, those took three minutes. You are listening to how long it took to write the song. This one I remember working through the bridge and going, oh, it's going somewhere. This is the song in which Jenny takes a boarder. It's called Fresh Tattoo. (2023-10-02 Belly Up Tavern)
- Thank you so much. It is emotional for me to be in San Francisco because there are two people in the room at present without whom the Mountain Goats would not exist at all. [cheering] One of them is Wendy who ran Aquarius, love you Wendy, and the other is Matt Nathanson, who ran the open mic night where I showed up one night at quarter to 12 as he was about to pack it in. I had just gotten off work, I got off work at 11:15 and I drove half an hour to Claremont, I was staying with my mom so I could go to college on the weekends, but there was an open mic there. I was writing songs, I thought they were kinda funny, so. So I remembered to go to the open mic night, and this guy with long hair was saying "if there's nobody else, I guess we'll shut down". So I said, well, I have a couple, and then I played like one whose chorus went 'let them kill me' [ed: The Water Song, which is generally not reassuring for people to hear you sing in the shower] and I probably played the Garden Song, the one about the guy who - and Matt came up and said, you have to come back next week. And without that, I would be your nurse today. So this is for you, Matt. (2023-10-05 August Hall)
- I don't think I've played Sacramento since, like, 1999. [crowd goes bonkers] I played at, like, a coffeeshop, with a band called the Quails. You should go loop up the Quails, they were fucking awesome. But we're the Mountain Goats and this is called Fresh Tattoo. (2023-10-07 Ace of Spades)
- JD: I said this the other night, and like, it feels performative but at the same time, when you elect to pick up a tambourine, and play it. If you're me and you grew up in the second wave of feminism, you remember how a lot of misogynists would go, 'oh, what's she do in the band, she plays the tambourine," motherfucker. Actually trying to keep time in 16th notes with [shakes tambourine]? That's a job. So. If you've ever hated on the tambourine player, stop.
Wurster: The tambourine is music's most painful instrument.
JD: That's right. It's like, it's like, a martial arts master of the tambourine: "you think you can play music? Try tambourine." Jon Wurster, what am I playing?
Wurster: Night Light!
JD: Hell yeah! (2023-10-29 The Heights Theater)
- The inimitable Matt Douglas! Often imitated, never duplicated, deeply appreciated. (2023-12-02 The Queen)
Live Performances
Footnotes
- *"what happens if I take you in" rather than "I think I'm gonna take you in" (2023-10-02, 2023-10-03, 2023-10-06, 2023-10-28)
- ** ba ba BA!!!