Hardpan Song

Hardpan Song
Album	All Hail West Texas (Remastered)
Released	July 23, 2013
Artist	the Mountain Goats
Length	2:00
Previous Track	"Absolute Lithops Effect"
Next Track	"Answering the Phone"

Hardpan Song is a song by the Mountain Goats written for their 2002 album All Hail West Texas, but it failed to make the cut. It was released as a bonus track on the 2013 remastered re-release of the album.

Lyrics

The daylily withers, the heat kills off all the grain
And just when you think it's never gonna rain
The rain comes
The rain comes
It floods the town
Kills everybody in it

The dog runs in circles
Parolees all skip town
The heat goes on forever and ever and ever
It shows no signs of slowing town
And then the rain comes
The rain comes
It shows no signs of stopping

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song

• "The only song of the bunch where I did the old record-into-the-boombox trick of taping something random from the radio and flipping the source switch from "radio" to "mic" and then immediately starting to play the song. Why it didn't make the album: feels like a formal exercise, or like the sort of brief vignette that was better suited to the earlier tape-only releases." - All Hail West Texas (2013 Reissue) liner notes

Live Shows this Song Was Played at

All Hail West Texas

Track list: "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton" • "Fall of the Star High School Running Back" • "Color in Your Cheeks" • "Jenny" • "Fault Lines" • "Balance" • "Pink and Blue" • "Riches and Wonders" • "The Mess Inside" • "Jeff Davis County Blues" • "Distant Stations" • "Blues in Dallas" • "Source Decay" • "Absolute Lithops Effect" Reissue bonus tracks: "Hardpan Song" • "Answering the Phone" • "Indonesia" • "Midland" • "Jenny" (alt. take) • "Tape Travel Is Lonely" • "Waco"