Training Montage
This song has an official music video (with both dad energy and high school video project energy simultaneously).
Lyrics
Water dripping from the pipes down in the basement
Bare feet on a concrete floor
Notches on the wall of my solitary cell[1]
Sweat dripping out of every pore
It feels like it takes forever
It's maybe five minutes on screen
But the horns will swell and the strings will sound
When that flipped quarter hits the ground
I'm doing this for revenge
I'm doing this to try and stay true
I'm doing this for the ones they[2] had to leave behind
I'm doing this for you
Keep cool down in the quiet of the morning
Sweat blood when the sun comes through
Thick mist on the pond before the temple
Headed down for the final rendezvous
Everybody ready for justice
Just another mile to go
But the strings will keen and the horns will cry[3]
When it's just me against the sky
I'm doing this for revenge
I'm doing this to try and stay true
I'm doing this for the ones they[2][4] left to twist in the wind
I'm doing this for you
I'm doing this for you
I'm doing this for revenge
I am doing this to try and stay true
I'm doing this for the ones we had to leave behind[5]
I'm doing this for you
I'm doing this for you
I'm doing this for you
Live lyric variations
- 1. "pen" for "cell" (2022-08-19, 2022-08-28)↩
- 2. "we" for "they" (2022-08-19, 2022-08-28, 2022-09-11, 2023-04-14)↩
- 3. "But the horns will sound and the strings will cry" (2022-09-11, 2023-10-03), "But the horns will keen and the strings will cry" (2022-08-28, 2022-09-17, 2022-09-18, 2023-04-01, 2023-04-14, 2023-04-18, 2023-10-06, 2023-10-07), "but the horns will swell and the strings will cry" (2023-04-12)↩
- 4. "you" for "they" (2022-08-28, 2022-09-11)↩
- 5. "the ones they tried to leave behind" (2023-04-18)↩
Banter
- JD: [starts playing song in the incorrect key]
Peter: Oh, hey, capo.
JD: Oh, capo, you're right, I'd have been in the wrong key otherwise. Kind of Cecil Taylor kinda thing. Peter, remind me, if I reach for the capo the rest of this tour, to use my right hand to put it on. I took a spill running, and I am playing with two torn ligaments in my left hand.
Audience: [sympathetic noises]
JD: But it makes me feel cool. But I think I'll use my right hand just to be safe. Doing something dumb like playing with two torn ligaments in your hand is precisely germane to the people in these songs. (2022-08-19 Brooklyn Arts Center)
- [key mistake] Peter is pointing out I have to capo this one. [audience: THANKS PETER] Peter has good volume. He's up there going NO NO NO! First fret, right, buddy? [Peter: yis.] My ability to not have any idea how the songs I wrote go is in the Guinness Book of World Records. (2022-08-28 The Broadberry)
- Thanks, y'all, what an honor to be here. Let's jump up and down to one more. [key mistake, recognized quickly] Wait! That's the wrong key! Aha! Let the record reflect that I caught myself. You're right, this thing is a magic machine, it transposes. It's easier to put it on when you don't have torn tendons in your hand. It sucks. I don't know if he actually said that, but I wanna preserve this exchange. I said, "it's easier to do, when you don't have torn tendons in your hand." and this gentleman said, "you look great". [cheering] (2022-09-11 The Hall)
- There weren't any vaccines in and I was sittin' around and everybody I knew was like 'oh, I binge-watched this' and I was like 'I have a child who doesn't sleep at night, I don't binge-watch anything, I go to bed at nine.' But at some point, I got bitter and resentful about this. 'I'm gonna watch some goddamn TV,' right? So I, y'know, I did what I want[ed] to do, I started watching, like, Japanese silent movies, y'know? If you have a child who is gonna wake you up at 2 AM, maybe the Japanese silent movie is not your speed –– you will not make it to the end of that one, if he goes to bed at 9, then at 9:30, however good that movie is, that's not the time for it. You need your three hours of sleep. On the other hand, if you got movies where a guy gets out a gun and wastes everybody in the first five minutes, that gives you a shot of adrenaline, that'd keep you awake. That is the genesis–– and all these movies, whether they're from Indonesia or the U.S. or France or Belgium or wherever, they all have the same thing. There's a point where the hero, y'know, something bad has happened to him. He goes through a hero's journey kind of thing but it's a more degrading type of hero's journey because always there's, like, very degrading stuff he has to suffer and, uh, yeah, he like goes to battle at some point and just gets ... just humiliated. And you think, man, you set him up to say he was good, but all those guys just beat the crap out of him, right? But then he has to go away to an island or something and practice, right? That's what he has to do, he has to, he has to, he has to, he has to like, look at his hand, y'know, he always has about a thirty-second shot where he's, like, lookin' at his hand and tryin' to understand the power of it or somethin' like that, it's deeply inspiring. And then, y'know, at the end of all this inspiration [?], he just goes back and kicks a bunch of guys' asses. This is called 'Training Montage.' (2022-11-16 Roundhouse - Wiki unverified)
- Audience: Chavo!!
JD: Chavo doesn't work live. I'm sorry to report. The chord progression is syncopated and I can't really play and sing it at the same time. There's a part of every action movie where a hero has been harmed in some way. He's been disrespected, you know, if we could cool it on the haze, that would be fuckin awesome. I can't see my people, and I need to make eye contact with them. So. But there's a moment in every action movie, and when I say every action movie, I mean in absolutely every action movie. When I was writing Bleed Out, I watched a lot of them, and they all had this thing, where the hero has been humiliated in some way, or disrespected, or he's fallen from his status, and he goes someplace by himself and he trains. And it only takes like 5 minutes for him to emerge from the ashes of the ruin that has happened at the midway point of the movie. And when you see this happening, when he comes back, he's gonna fuck somebody up. Very severely. This is called Training Montage. (2023-04-01 Mars Music Hall)
- I want you to imagine yourself, standing in what once was a building, and is now rubble, with dust clouds rising. It was a nice building, it cost somebody a lot of money to build and to sell, a very nice building, it's been around awhile. And you're still wrecking the building. You're sitll finding spots to beat up. And I want you to imagine that someone has approached you and asked you why you are doing this. I want you to hold that thought until we get to the chorus of the song. (2023-04-12 The District)
- JD: See, I thought I had to put on the guitar, but I get to wait one to put on the guitar. [off mic chatter for a sec with Peter] No. Peter's correct. I have to strap up. And if I do well, then I get to take off the guitar.
Peter: (off mic) and capo 1.
JD: ...where's it at?
Peter: the capo?
JD: [off mic searching for a capo, capo is provided by our hero Ben, cheers] Thank you, Ben. [more Ben cheering]
[more off mic set list confusion]
JD: Matt, you've got the wrong setlist. We're playing Training Montage. [crowd has an extremely justified conniption] Matt had 'On Green Dolphin Street'. [one guy goes 'aww'] I know. But it would have been a catastrophe, I can't play that. Only Matt can play that. (2023-10-03 The Belasco)
- Why, what have we here. [off mic/audience unintelligible] My man, that's correct, to thus, who my friend Peter, and his in ear monitors, I wanna say that one of my faithful, when I say "what have we here" - you heard him? how could you hear him?? what's that? [unintelligible]
Peter: I heard it with my ears.
JD: You know why this is called a machine? because of the conspiracy that if I call it a capo [pronounced with a long A] some guy will tell me it's called a capo [short A]. If I call it a capo [short A] the same fellow will tell me it's called a capo [long A]. That's why they came up with the brilliant solution to refer to it as 'the machine'. 'cause nobody's gonna say it's pronounced any way other than 'machine'. (2023-10-06 August Hall)
- [JD starts to play a David Bowie cover and the rest of the band slowly picks up/joins in] Nah, nah, I don't actually know that song. [band stops] There are some extraordinarily frustrated Bowie freaks out there right now. But I don't know the rest of the song. That's all I can do for you. And honestly, if I was gonna do one it would be Lady Grinning Soul. [crowd yells, band makes plans] (2023-10-07 Ace of Spades)
Commentary
The Van Damme movies, all the kung fu movies have a training montage, most of the Rocky movies have a training montage. It's a myth about subjecting yourself to a period of austerity and discipline for some reawakening. I think it predates the action movie, this idea that you're going to retreat for a winter of hard times and emerge in spring as a beautiful, powerful flower, a season in isolation to refocus oneself on some goal—maybe a noble goal, maybe not. And also, to start it with just acoustic guitar and voice, it sounds like a very early Mountain Goats record until the drum hits. (JD, Album commentary on Apple Music)
Closing
If closing the show, JD will end the song with a shoutout to each band member, and often introduce himself with an alias, similar to Heel Turn 2 or Spent Gladiator 2.
- 2022-08-28: "One of the best drummers alive, Mr. Jon Wurster," "my dude for over 20 years, Mr. Peter Hughes," "I am the singer from Mass Factor 4. My name is John."
- 2022-09-17: "My name is Dr. Bruce Banner and I'm a scientist."
- 2022-09-18: "I am the cook, my name is John Darnielle."
Live Performances
The curator of this website recommends 2022-09-18 Tipitina's as the best overall performance if you only have time for one live performance.