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Matthew 11:14-19
Flux

Album

The Life of the World in Flux

Released

2009

Artist

the Mountain Goats

Length

3:15

Previous Track

"Romans 10:9"

Next Track

"Enoch 18:14"

Matthew 11:14-19 is the 12th song on the album The Life of the World in Flux.

Bible Verse[]

And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. Whoever has ears, let them hear.

"To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

"We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not mourn.

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.' But wisdom is proved right by her deeds." NIV Translation

Lyrics[]

He who casts the stone can't ever do so on his own
It takes a crowd to drown a witch
So he said to us when he wriggled free and got the gun from me
Standing before us, his cracking voice rising in pitch

And then the blood that's been spilling from his eyes
Soaks through the bandages that are wrapped around his face
And just before he walks backwards through the wall
He pivots 45 degrees to face us all
And he says 
"Let him who has eyes to see
Take a good look at me
I'm a Mylar sheet hanging in the sun" 

Claude Rains in all his glory
Is not arrayed like these
Who have come to walk before us
Rising from their knees
Fighting back against their captors
Calling down the curse
Like this man whose substance is malleable
Screaming out chapter and verse 

And then the blood
That's been spilling from his eyes
Soaks through the bandages that are wrapped around his face
And just before he walks backwards through the wall
He pivots 45 degrees to face us all
And he says 
"Let him who has eyes to see
Take a good look at me
I'm a Mylar sheet hanging in the sun" 

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]

  • "If you didn't see the Mountain Goats in 1994, which most people didn't, 'cause in a room full of twenty people I was third of three, right. But I would say, well, look, they're probably not going to pay attention to the guy with the acoustic guitar anyway, so the only way to get their attention is to come out and do something really loud and confusing that seems possibly violent, right. So I'm trying to open the solo sets now with some song that maybe two people in the room have ever heard. And that makes people go 'okay, well, I wasn't expecting the song with the guy with the bleeding eyes.'" -- 2021-09-07 - City Winery - New York, NY

Things Referenced in this Song[]

  • Claude Rains was an Academy Award-nominated actor from classic films including Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia. The lyric references his performance in The Invisible Man, where his head was wrapped in bandages to disguise the fact he couldn't be seen.

Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]


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