| Idylls of the Kings | |
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Album |
Tallahassee |
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Released |
2002 |
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Artist |
the Mountain Goats |
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Length |
3:32 |
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Next Track |
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Idylls of the King is the sixth song on the album Tallahassee. It was performed by Miracles of Modern Science in Tallahassee Turns Ten.
Lyrics[]
This place with its old plantations These roads leading out to the sea This day full of promise and potential More clay pigeons for you and me All of them all of them All of them all of them All of them all of them all of them all of them All lined up Huge crows loitering by the curb Our shared paths unraveling behind us like ribbons And I dreamed of vultures In the trees around our house And cicadas and locusts And the shrieking of innumerable gibbons All of them all of them All of them all of them All of them all of them all of them all of them All lined up How long will we ride this wave out? How long 'til someone caves under the pressure? My dreams are haunted by armies armies of ghosts Faces too blurry to make out Numbers far too high to measure Your face like a vision straight out of Holly Hobbie Late light drizzling through your hair Your eyes twin volcanoes Bad ideas dancing around in there All all of them all of them All of them all of them All of them all of them all of them all of them All lined up
Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]
- [replying to a tweet that said 'Alright, but how many of those 4,400 guitar chords have yet to be deployed in tMG songs?'] "a lot, but you need them when you're playing other people's songs for pleasure, or writing e.g. 'Idylls of the King'" -- John's Twitter
- "I wrote Idylls of the King on an ESP with a chord chart at hand and I wanted it to be a cafe jazz thing, and I promptly forgot how I played it after recording it." -- Mountain Goats Facebook page, 2024-10-03
Things Referenced in this Song[]
- Idylls of the King is a cycle of poems written by Alfred Lord Tennyson about the legend of King Arthur.
Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]
- 2002-10-09 - The Cobblestone - Dublin, Ireland
- 2003-01-29 - Mean Fiddler - London, England
- 2007-04-03 - Garage - Oslo, Norway
- 2013-06-08 - Port City Music Hall - Portland, ME
- 2016-09-01 - The State Theatre - Falls Church, VA
- 2016-09-03 - Mr. Small's - Millvale, PA
| Tallahassee |
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Track list: "Tallahassee" • "First Few Desperate Hours" • "Southwood Plantation Road" • "Game Shows Touch Our Lives" • "The House That Dripped Blood" • "Idylls of the King" • "No Children" • "See America Right" • "Peacocks" • "International Small Arms Traffic Blues" • "Have to Explode" • "Old College Try" • "Oceanographer's Choice" • "Alpha Rats Nest" |
| The "Alpha" Series |
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Track list: "Alpha Aquae" • "Alpha Desperation March" • "Alpha Double Negative: Going to Catalina" • "Alpha Gelida" • "Alpha Incipiens" • "Alpha Negative" • "Alpha Omega" • "Alpha Rats Nest" • "Alpha Sun Hat" • "Alpha in Tauris" • "Alphabetizing" • "Letter from a Motel" • "One Winter at Point Alpha Privative" • "Spilling Toward Alpha" • "Fit Alpha Vi" • "Alpha Compunction" • "Going to Dade County" • "Tallahassee" • "First Few Desperate Hours" • "Southwood Plantation Road" • "Game Shows Touch Our Lives" • "The House That Dripped Blood" • "Idylls of the Kings" • "No Children" • "See America Right" • "Peacocks" • "International Small Arms Traffic Blues" • "Have to Explode" • "Old College Try" • "Oceanographer's Choice" • "Ethiopians" • "Alpha Chum Gatherer" • "New Chevrolet in Flames" • "Design Your Own Container Garden" • "Going to Federal Prison" • "Orange Ball of Hate" |