Marduk[1] T-Shirt Men's Room Incident[2]
Lyrics
Slumped up against the sink
Hair plastered to her cheeks
Marduk t-shirt sticking to her skin
Refugee from a disco in old east Berlin[3]
Weightless, formless, blameless, nameless
Stray syllables were gurgling
From her throat one at a time
Face hidden from my view
I let myself imagine she was you
Only weightless, formless, blameless, nameless
And when I washed my hands
I ran the water hotter than I could stand
Half rising to a crouch
Sinking back down to the floor
When you’re walking keep your head low
Try to leave no traces when you go
Stay weightless, formless, blameless, nameless
Banter
- This is the other song I tend to fuck up live. I'm not trying to jinx myself, just being honest with you. You probably.. I mean who am I to dispense life advice? But when, when a person says he's just being honest this is a good time to start looking for the exists. Especially a potential romantic partner, people who put great priority on just being honest, it means they're about to harm you, in some very essential way. Not just that they're going to screw you over or cheat on you, they're really going to find the vulnerable spot and get to it, because it gives them pleasure, that's how they get their pleasure. And so they say to you "hey, you know I just try to be an honest person" oh my friends, locate all the places to run in a fire, in that kind of situation. This is called Marduk T-shirt Men's Room Incident. (2008-03-02)
- This song is about the inevitable Ron Paul/John Darnielle presidency. (2008-03-20)
- This is a song about a guy who goes into the men's room — to use the men's room, and there's a woman in there, who looks like she's completely out of it, and doesn't really even know he's there. It's sad. (2012-09-09)
Footnotes
1. Marduk is a Swedish black metal band named after the Mesopotamian patron deity of Babylon. ↩
2. "People talk about songs that develop like visions and usually I am pretty mistrustful of such stories — but this one sort of just jumped up out of nowhere one day." — Heretic Pride press kit
John has always been adamant that this song is not about any kind of violent encounter, beginning soon after the album's release when the song was misconstrued on the forums as being about rape:
although I generally don't weigh in on interpretive questions, I'm going to make an exception here. I would not be interested in singing from the perspective of a rapist. some writers might; good luck to them; I wouldn't. richardob is correct in his interpretation. the narrator is moved by the plight of the woman he sees; the details of the plight are obscure to the reader/listener, permanently, since we're only hearing the report of an observer with minimal information. the lyric seems pretty clear and straightforward to me:
slumped up against the sink, hair plastered to her cheek marduk t-shirt sticking to her skin refugee from a disco in old east berlin
-- this is the narrator reporting, honestly, on the evidence of his senses. He has thoughts and feelings arising from this information, and he reports the same. we don't know what the deal is with the woman. we're never going to know. that is kind of the point.
Continuing in a later post, discussing how an artist can't control interpretation after a piece is released:
as you probably know, I generally agree with you, but again there's some points on which one wishes to say "no, y'all, you seem to have some other writer in mind - I wouldn't write a song trying to humanize a rapist." just providing a general direction, not a final reading! anybody who wants to argue that the song is actually a recipe for borscht will also find I think that there are in truth some general parameters of interpretation that're valid, you dig?
Mountain Goats forums, (nameless forum thread), (1), (2), March 8, 2008; retrieved October 28, 2014. See also City Arts and Lectures, Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, February 24, 2009; Hopscotch, Durham, September 8, 2012. (Annotated TMG)↩
3. East Berlin was the portion of Berlin occupied by Russia after the end of World War II. It was segregated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. (Annotated TMG)↩