| Beach House | |
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Album |
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Released |
1993 |
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Artist |
the Mountain Goats |
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Length |
2:17 |
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Previous track |
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Next track |
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Beach House is the ninth song on The Mountain Goats' fourth cassette, Hot Garden Stomp.
Lyrics[]
I get letters telling me since I moved away You've taken to hanging out on that rock about a mile from shore And given what I know about that rock, namely that it's populated by seals I strongly suggest to you that you not hang out there anymore 'Cause the seal is a wily and a vicious creature And the seal will bite you if you give him half a chance Yeah the seal has a mind set on violence And the seal is the sworn enemy of man Now when I say that the seal is vicious, I use the term advisedly According to Webster's 9th New Collegiate, definition 4b Which states that vicious means marked by ferocity And offers as a synonym: savage 'Cause the seal is a vicious and a wily creature And the seal has a mind full of evil designs And the seal will harm you and laugh about it Yeah the seal is not a creature you want to toy with Yeah the seal is not a creature you want to toy with
Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]
- "That's an example of a personified narrator. I don't have anything against seals, I happen to like seals. The explanation of the song is, there's a guy who’s obsessively in love with some woman and in order to get her to live not far away from him he makes up this thing about seals being dangerous. ...He's an incompetent guy. There are better ways; you can say the crime rate is high, that might dissuade—'seals will bite you' will not dissuade somebody from living someplace. The same basic character is in other songs. He's neurotic but not psychotic: somebody who gets through the details of daily life, and you wouldn't really know he's insane unless you were his girlfriend. I never fleshed him out as a guy—he doesn't have a name. The songs are dramatic monologues so the character exists only for the utterance." -- 1994 interview with John, Puncture magazine
Things Referenced in this Song[]
Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]
- 1997-04-04 - Duke Coffeehouse - Durham, NC
- 1998-05-15 - The Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL
- 2002-03-10 - The Green Room - Iowa City, IA
- 2005-03-23 - Emo's - Austin, TX
- 2009-03-25 - Somerville Theater - Somerville, MA
- 2009-04-01 - Portage Theater - Chicago, IL
Videos of this Song[]
| Hot Garden Stomp |
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Side One: "Pure Milk" • "Ice Blue" • "Water Song II" • "Sun Song" • "Going to Japan" • "Are You Cleaning Off the Stone?" • "The Hot Garden Stomp" • "Love Hymn to Aphrodite" |