Leaving Home

Leaving Home
Album	Cyanide Guilt Trip
Released	1996
Artist	the Mountain Goats
Length	2:41
Previous Track	"One of Your Pop Songs" (Edith Presler)
Next Track	"You're Shaken, I'm Stirred" (Milky Wimpshake)

Leaving Home is the second song on the compilation Cyanide Guilt Trip. It was re-released on the compilation Ghana.

Lyrics

We gathered up our worldly goods
Stole off in the dawn as quickly as we could
You were quieting the baby down
When we came to the dock on the outskirts of town
And looking back we saw China 
Shrinking to the size of a coin
And then we saw water everywhere

When we climbed on board
They tied our things together with electrical cord
And then we set sail
As we held on tight to the cold iron rail
And I apologize but I don't know what I love more
You next to me there or the receding shore
We stood there in the cold
And the baby was six months old
We were passing him back and forth
When a cold familiar wind came down from the north
And looking back we saw China 
Shrinking to the size of a coin
And then we saw water everywhere 

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song

• "One of the very few songs I wrote during the six months when I was living in Chicago. I missed California. It seems maudlin to say things out loud, so I made up a whole different set of circumstances with which to surround the feeling. This song, then, is obliquely about watching the California coastline fade into memory as an airplane took me from L.A. to O'Hare Airport in August of 1995. Quite obliquely, actually, as this song takes place in China." -- Ghana liner notes
• "I lived in Chicago for six months and I think I only wrote -- in my opinion -- one song worth keeping, but then there's the other one that people always ask for, and then I think, 'are you sure you don't mean some other song?' But I'm just, I'm taking people's word on this one for now, if people want to hear it." -- 2007-06-17 - Zoop - Farm Sanctuary - Watkins Glen, NY

Live Shows this Song Was Played at

• 2007-06-17 - Zoop - Farm Sanctuary - Watkins Glen, NY