Brisbane Hotel Sutra

Brisbane Hotel Sutra
Album	All Eternals Deck
Released	2011
Artist	the Mountain Goats
Length	2:39

Brisbane Hotel Sutra is a bonus track from the album All Eternals Deck. It was available on the Australian version of the All Eternals Deck CD.

Lyrics

On the crooked road that took me north
And brought me home again
From the pit of writhing serpents
Out to the lion's den
Where the labyrinth is lightless
And the faithless wander crazed
Let the light rise from the darkness
Let his name be praised

From the sunrise of my childhood
To its premature demise
From my mother's best intentions
To my stepdad's seething eyes
From the hidden self-inflicted wounds
That flowered in later days
To the folly of their learning
Let his name be praised 

In the holes the worms have eaten
Through all once-treasured things
From the wet mouth of the vulture
To the red tips of his wings
In the dazed eyes of the penitent
Emerging from the maze
In his wordless explanations
Let his name be praised

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song

• "This song almost didn't get played live at all, but-but diligence and a patient audience have rewarded us with uh, a complete [unintelligble] I should play, frankly. I wrote this in a, uh-I get depressed on tour, um, and it's really a very strange feeling if you let the depression hit you, you know, and you're in Brisbane, Australia, you're on the other side of the world. The-The extent of your good fortune and privilege can't even be measured. Y-you are gonna play songs for people who tell you that they like them and have use for them and your life has meaning and value, and yet you feel extraordinarily depressed. This is because depression has nothing to do with whether your life is going well or not, right? So, uh, but, uh-but so I'll be sitting there in the room, and I won't have been paying attention to my mood all day, and then suddenly the floor goes out from under me, and I have learned over the past five years or so that uh, for me, if I just start working then, um, something good might come out. Um, uh, this was uh- so this was written in uh, uh, the Medina Hotel in uh, Brisbane, Australia, and it's called 'Brisbane Hotel Sutra.'" -- 2014-02-28 - Rangos Ballroom - Carnegie Mellon University - Pittsburgh, PA
• "This was a song that- it's one of those that, uh, we got really attached to, and then it just doesn't fit in with the others, because we dwell really hard on sequence. We want - we know that we're the only ones who care, but we still want the songs to be a sequence that if you sit and listen to it in that order, then it does something. It coheres as a picture somehow. And if there's a song that won't play with the others, then no matter how much we like it, it has to go. Uh, and this was that one, uh, that I wrote- I mean, it's essentially, uh, from time to time songs will crop up for me, uh, that, uh, belong on The Sunset Tree, right, not to say that they're as good as those or whatever, but they're in the same vein, right, they're from that impulse that will never be fully settled. And then I don't know where to put them, because they don't fit, so they wind up as bonus tracks or just live stuff, and this was one..." -- 2014-04-19 - Old Town School of Folk Music - Chicago, IL

Live Shows this Song Was Played at

• 2014-02-28 - Rangos Ballroom - Carnegie Mellon University - Pittsburgh, PA
• 2014-04-19 - Old Town School of Folk Music - Chicago, IL

Videos of this Song

• 2014-04-19 - Old Town School of Folk Music - Chicago, IL

All Eternals Deck

Track list: "Damn These Vampires" • "Birth of Serpents" • "Estate Sale Sign" • "Age of Kings" • "The Autopsy Garland" • "Beautiful Gas Mask" • "High Hawk Season" • "Prowl Great Cain" • "Sourdoire Valley Song" • "Outer Scorpion Squadron" • "For Charles Bronson" • "Never Quite Free" • "Liza Forever Minnelli" Bonus tracks: "Brisbane Hotel Sutra" • "Used to Haunt" All Survivors Pack: "Catherine Antrim’s Kid" • "Rotten Stinking Mouthpiece"