Down to the Ark is an unreleased song by the Mountain Goats. It was written for radio program Weekend America's episode about Super Tuesday.
Lyrics[]
The candidates met up in North Dakota And they donned their black robes there in the chapel hall They said a brief invocation to their cloven-hoofed prince And they signed their names in blood on the vestry wall In Christ you know there's neither high nor low And the void will claim all creatures small or bright Seal up the borders or let everybody in In the order of the serpent, there'll be neither left nor right And we pull down our blindfolds Reach out for the lever in the dark Get a sticker for our shirts as we head into the sun Proudly bearing the mark Headed down to the ark The applicants went down to Oklahoma And they hired an accent coach to teach them the western twang And several post-born babies learned the hard way Vampires only kiss you when they've sharpened up their fangs, yeah And as Minnesota fell, so went Missouri We were meeting at VFWs in the snow And we voted down the tax codes, and we voted down the war So many names to choose from, just one way to go And we pull down our blindfolds Reach out for the lever in the dark Get a sticker for our shirts as we head into the sun Proudly bearing the mark Headed down to the ark
Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]
- "Either you're a really good political satirist and you can do something that is poking fun but at the same time not being partisan, you know, or you can't, and I wouldn't — that's just not sort of what I do. I write little emotional psychodramas. So, you know, then, once I got my hook, that I was gonna portray all the candidates as, you know, people who drink the blood of infants, that was exciting to me. Because that's sort of my political position." -- 2008-02-02 - Weekend America Session - New York, NY