Milk Song

Milk Song
Album	Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg
Released	N/A
Artist	the Mountain Goats
Length	2:14
Previous Track	"I Love You, Let's Light Ourselves on Fire"
Next Track	"Ghosts"

Milk Song is the fifth song on the unreleased album Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg.

Lyrics

When the sky was the color of cream
And you started leaving messages on my answering machine
Telling me that you were way across town and would
Be home in a night or two
I started keeping track of my losses
There were only one or two I couldn't cover
And up there against the milk white sky I saw
Fleeting vestiges of you

But the way you vanished gradually
Has made a bitter man of me
Yeah the way you vanished gradually
Has made a bitter man of me

Where the ocean cleaves the rocks real clean
I dropped my answering machine
I watched the waves chew it into tiny little pieces 
Saw the sea foam hissing in the air
In the balance sheet I'd been keeping in my mind I entered
Two hundred kroners to the left of the debit line
It was what the machine had cost me
It was a greater loss than I could bear
I hear the wheels and knobs whirring down to this very day
Long after the ocean has washed it all away
I heard the train go by last night
And it's a slow train out of here alright

But the way you disappeared in slow degrees
Has made a very patient man of me, yeah

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song

• "I said 'answering machine', and I thought, 'answering machine. [pause] Answering machine. There's gotta people in this room who have no idea what, what an answering machine was, right.' Uh, because -- and so now I'm going to sound like an old person, which I'm not yet, but I'm gonna be one, and it's gonna be awesome.... But uh, but an answering machine was when there were no cell phones. It was a very radical invention in the seventies. Prior to that, and I love to imagine this, because it feels like -- it feels like Camelot. Prior to that, if somebody called you and you weren't home, you were free. Don't want to talk to you? I just gotta leave the house." -- 2020-02-22 - Swedish American Hall - San Francisco, CA

Live Shows this Song Was Played at

• 2010-12-14 - Castro Theater - San Francisco, CA
• 2019-11-11 - Pustervik - Gothenburg, Sweden
• 2020-02-22 - Swedish American Hall - San Francisco, CA

Videos of this Song

• 2019-11-11 - Pustervik - Gothenburg, Sweden