Night Light
Lyrics
Pull my mask so tight
Til it pinches my skin
Nerves strung so high
I am a mandolin
Jenny calls from Montana
She's only passing through
Probably never see her again in this life** I guess
Not sure what I'm gonna do
Plug a night light in
Leave the porch light on
Because the small dark corners have designs on me
Live like an outlaw
Clutching gold coins in his claw
Room full of ambitious young policemen*
Everybody trying to make his mark
I was a red dot blinking on a screen up overhead
And then the room went dark
Dream of maybe waking up someday
And wanting you less than I do
This is a dream though
It's never gonna come true
Plug a night light in
Leave the porch light on
Because the small dark corners are establishing a colony
Live like an outlaw
Clutching gold coins in his claw
Can't ever set aside the sweetness
Of the days before the crews put up the border
Fields full of wet rain***
Cling tight to their memory forever
Think about Montana when I close my eyes
Possibly Jenny's headed east
Count a couple of^^ stray hopes out loud
May^^^ their numbers one day be increased
Plug a night light in
Leave the porch light on
Because the small dark corners breathe like heavy animals^
Live like an outlaw
Clutching gold coins in his claw
Banter
- This song is about the sort of paranoid state you get into if you sit around contemplating the wrong thing for too long, which is sort of how I came to look at my own past, like, you have to be a careful steward of your brain and your thoughts, because no one else can help you out with them. (2012-06-27 Swedish American Hall)
- These next couple are new, and I sort of keep trying to practice how to talk about the new songs, because they are -- I'm just not going to feel right about saying this, and I'm gonna be saying it all through the autumn -- they're about mental illness, but that seems like a very presumptuous thing to say. Right? Uh, but everybody in them, uh, has some sort of thing that goes on with them in their ability to socialize or their ability to feel comfortable in the presence of other people or their ability to feel in contact with themselves that sets them outside of their peer group and of their town and of us in general. I mean, not 'us' you and me but the bigger 'us' that none of us actually get to belong to, but you sit there, like the phallus, you can't ever actually see it but you know it's there, uh, yeah, the interviews this fall are going to be catastrophic. And that's what it's about. But it is. I mean, it's about people who are what we would call mentally ill, but I used to work in mental health and I now think of the term 'mental illness' as kind of a garbage term, and I think it's only used to put people in diagnostic categories, it doesn't really describe the people who are different and who have to find someplace to stand outside. [applause] Thank you. I don't have any idea what to do about that, I have no solutions, it's very easy to say 'that's a garbage term' but, you know, have you got something better? Do we just... I'm always remembering stories when I worked at the hospital when you know, we'd bring people in, those people are flaggin' down planes at LAX. There has to be some sort of intervention. There has to be a box you can put them in to get them services, right? But that same box becomes really constricting very fast and uh, you know, and of course it doesn't help when there's no funding of any kind in the country for mental health. But I won't get started about that. This song has some people who aren't so well in it and one who's getting better. (2012-06-30)
- "It's about the last nagging bit of a memory you can't seem to erase, that just sort of sits there, like a, like a, like, if you had a chalkboard and you - and there was one piece of chalk they didn't warn you wouldn't erase. And you only used it briefly once, because it felt different when you wrote on the chalkboard, so you stopped, but by then you had already written. And that mark will not go away. And that's what the song is about. (2018-04-21 Upstate Concert Hall)
- (off mic) It helps so much to be in the right key. (on mic) You hear, I won't name any names, but you hear about singers who have had their songs pitched lower as they age. Three weeks ago I sent an email to the band saying, can we play that one a step higher. Score one for the Mountain Goats, minus one for all the other bands. My new brand is hating on all the other bands. (2023-10-02 Belly Up Tavern)
- [JD starts playing Night Light, stops suddenly] Oh, that's right, I'm capoing up, huh. Disaster averted there. Half a step or a whole step? [Matt or Peter, off mic: whole step] The thing is, I'm very proud that you get to know that I'm capoing up. Because most of the other singers as they age, they tune down. The Mountain Goats go the other way. (2023-10-29 The Heights Theater)
- When you meet a bunch of people who are showing you a good time, you say hey, I wanna reward you with a song about the encroaching paranoia of wondering where somebody is. [I've] got a good bassist by the name of Peter Hughes who reminds you to put your capo on. Got a good friend. I'm the guy who capoed the song up a half step. (2023-12-02 The Queen)
Live Performances
Footnotes
- * Variant: "detectives" instead of "policemen". (2023-10-02, 2023-10-05, 2023-12-02)
- ** Variant: "world" instead of "life" (2023-10-05, 2023-10-07, 2023-12-02)
- *** Variant line: "but those days are gone now" (2023-10-05, 2023-10-07), and "let me cling tight" (2023-10-07)
- ^ Variant line: "heave and breathe down there like wretched animals" (2023-10-05), "heave and breathe down there like heavy animals" (2023-10-07, 2023-10-29, 2023-12-02)
- ^^ Variant: "a dozen of" instead of "a couple of" (2023-10-07)
- ^^^ Variant: "pray" instead of "may" (2023-10-07)