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in: All Eternals Deck songs, All Survivors Pack songs, Video

High Hawk Season

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High Hawk Season
All Eternals Deck

Album

All Eternals Deck

Released

2011

Artist

the Mountain Goats

Length

2:56

Previous track

"Beautiful Gas Mask"

Next track

"Prowl Great Cain"

Track seven on All Eternals Deck. This song also appears as a demo on All Survivors Pack as track 9.

Lyrics[]

I heard the wings beat 
on the wind tonight
As the heat stole power from
 the darkening light
I saw the streets fill up
 with people that I knew
People who looked like you

Rise if you're sleeping, stay awake
We are young supernovas and
 the heat's about to break

Drift through the streets,
 walk between the cars
Newborn sons and daughters
 spat forth from distant stars
The summer will reveal itself
 to those whose hearts are true
And to the faithless few

Rise if you're sleeping, stay awake
We are young supernovas and
 the heat's about to break

Who will rise and who will sink? 
Who's going to stand his ground
 and who's going to blink?
Surge forward from Van Cortlandt Park
 like frightened sheep
Spirit throngs that hoist us high,
 three thousand warriors deep

Spray our dreams on any surface
 where the paint will stick
Try to time the rhythm,
 listen for the click 

Rise if you're sleeping, stay awake
We are young supernovas and
 the heat's about to break

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]

  • "That song was the second one I wrote after we moved across town here in Durham, right, and our new backyard, the hawks were landing in it, which I suspect they were doing because there were two new cats in the neighborhood, sort of checking it out. But, uh, but if you get more than one hawk, like, two hawk sightings in your backyard in the space of a week, for an excitable animal person like me, that means you just won at life, you know, everything else is great, once I'm, you know I really love to have animals in my environment, I would live in a zoo if I could. So yeah, there was this hawk in the back, and my wife knows a lot about birds and she was explaining, how, uh, it does this, this is not going to translate well on radio but they do this thing with their necks where they sort of looking like they're checking you out, and that's because they're getting perspective to figure out how far you are from them in case they need to eat you, right, And, uh, and I thought that was awesome, so I got this really sort of surrounded vibe from them, um, and I was, you know, there's something really neat about feeling surveilled by, by birds of prey." -- 2011-04-08 - WUNC Session - Chapel Hill, NC
  • "This song is just basically, uh, a narration to the script to 'The Warriors'." -- 2012-06-30 - McCabe's Guitar Shop - Santa Monica, CA
  • (On connecting to the background singers) "Daniel Perry, who wrote the arrangement, is a friend - I've wanted to get vocal arrangements for a while, and he sings in a choir, so I gave him a call." -- John's AMA

Things Referenced in this Song[]

  • Van Cortlandt Park is located in the Bronx Borough in New York City.
  • "listen for the click" refers to the "'click track,' i.e., the metronome you track to if you’re putting down a part that you’re going to want other people to play on later", as per John's Tumblr.

Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]

Videos of this Song[]


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