Water Tower
Lyrics
Moving lights on an overhead map
Have to be headed somewhere
There's probably going to be a building burning in town
When you smell* smoke in the air
Small hopes are seen to still be small ones
When the hour grows late
And a body floating in a water tower
Is bound to take on weight
Somebody comes bearing the standard
Just when you need to see it held high
You never miss your water
Until you're parched, riding home from the slaughter
Oracles are seen emerging
From the northern mists
And a body floating in a water tower
Is bound at the ankles and wrists
Bound at the ankles and wrists
Marks in the skin
From where the ropes have been digging right in
Men of legend built the cities of the prairie
To rise from the horizon at night
Feel something bigger than me
When I see them trapped** in the headlight
Head east, head north by northeast
Get my bearing and know
That a body floating in a water tower
Only has one way to go
Float downstream
Let me float downstream
Floating downstream
Banter
- I dunno if you heard, but this is our Record Release Party! We got dressed up for it and everything. This is on the new record and this morning we said 'we should learn that one to try and play it'. Cross your fingers.
[some cross talk about who starts off mic]
Wurster: Do I start it?
Matt: No, we start it.
JD: See, tried to put it on me, saying do you start it? No I don't! I don't have to start it.
Peter: [laughing] How do we start it?
Matt: We start it - with the little - four bars [crosstalk].
JD: You run through the first verse, half verse...fellas, you've got to get it together for the record release party! [everyone laughs and cries of 'chumps!!' are heard from the audience in reference to a previous joke] (2023-10-27 Cactus Theater)
- I don't want to single the person out who I think is my favorite person in the world right now. But the reason that I started to laugh in the middle of this otherwise pretty grim song is when I got to the line about 'bound at the ankles and wrists', a friendly person over here looked up and held up her wrists. And you may or may not know that the Mountain Goats went global last year with a TikTok trend [woo!] you may see the next one that's - this is like that, but with the murder of a person and disposal of their body. You rule for that, thank you so much.
Peter: The Mountain Goats Tik Tok Sit Tight Challenge. [raucous laughter, ba dum tss from Wurster]
JD: I don't admin our TikTok, that would be gauche, I have all these dumb ideas, but music business managers really like TikTok because a lot of people use it. When something like that happens, I guarantee my manager will be awake 16 hours a day like "reblogging another one of those TikToks, John". (2023-10-28 Longhorn Ballroom)
- I used to feel bad about tuning my guitar until I became a Grateful Dead fan. You listen to old Grateful Dead bootlegs, those motherfuckers would tune for 15 minutes in front of a paying crowd, talking to each other off mic. It's inspiring. This song is a sort of evangelical sorta tune, at some time in all of our lives we might find ourselves responsible for a body floating in a water tower. (2023-10-29 The Heights Theater)
Live Performances
Footnotes
*Variant: "hear" instead of "smell" (2023-10-27)
** Variant: "frozen" instead of "trapped" (2023-10-28)