Going to Alaska

Going to Alaska
Album	Taboo VI: The Homecoming
Released	1991
Artist	the Mountain Goats
Length	2:33
Previous track	"Solomon Revisited"
Next track	"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"

Going to Alaska is the eighth song on The Mountain Goats' first cassette, Taboo VI: The Homecoming.

Lyrics

The jacaranda are wet with color, 
and the heat is a great paint brush, lending color to our lives, 
and to the air, and to our faces; but I'm going to Alaska 
where there's snow to suck the sound out from the air. 

Up, yes, in the branches, 
the purple blossoms, go pale at the edges;
there is meaning in the shifting of the sap, and I see in them traces 
of last year, but then they hadn't grown so strong, 
and their limbs were more like wires. Now they are cables.
thick and alive with alien electricity, and I am going to Alaska,
where you can go blind just by looking at the ground,
where fat is eaten by itself
just to keep the body warm.

Because from where we are now, it seems, really,
that everything is growing in a thousand different ways;
that the soil is soaked through with old blood and with relatives
who were buried here, or close to here, and they are giving rise
to what is happening. Or can you tell me otherwise?
I am going to Alaska, where the animals can kill you,
but they do so in silence, as though if no-one hears them,
then it really won't matter. I am going to Alaska.
They tell me that it's perfect for my purposes.

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song

• "I had written some songs, and I don’t know where in the writing of that first batch I did this, but I still consider this the first Mountain Goats song (or second; “The Pieman” also vies for the title). It began life as a poem, which I’ll transcribe below..." -- John's Tumblr

Live Shows this Song Was Played at

• 1998-02-07 - Vinyl Fever - Tallahassee, FL
• 1998-04-12 - Brownie's - New York City, NY
• 2000-10-19 - WFMU Session - WFMU Studios - Jersey City, NJ
• 2002-03-07 - Independent Media Center - Urbana, IL
• 2002-11-13 - Opolis - Norman, OK
• 2007-05-05 - Local 506 - Chapel Hill, NC
• 2008-02-19 - University of Alaska Anchorage Wendy Williamson Auditorium - Anchorage, AK
• 2009-03-24 - Pearl Street - Northampton, MA
• 2009-03-25 - Somerville Theater - Somerville, MA
• 2009-06-13 - Zoop II - Farm Sanctuary - Watkins Glen, NY
• 2014-01-19 - Rock for Roe at the Pinhook - Durham, NC
• 2014-04-20 - Old Town School of Folk Music - Chicago, IL
• 2014-06-15 - Bottom of the Hill - San Francisco, CA
• 2015-09-09 - Lawrence Arts Center - Lawrence, KS
• 2015-11-13 - Art School - Glasgow, Scotland
• 2017-05-22 - Terminal West - Atlanta, GA
• 2017-12-04 - Harvester Performance Center - Rocky Mount, VA
• 2019-09-28 - City Winery - Philadelphia, PA
• 2021-08-06 - The Orange Peel - Asheville, NC
• 2021-10-22 - College Street Music Hall - New Haven, CT

Videos of this Song

• 2017-05-22 - Terminal West - Atlanta, GA