The Mountain Goats Wiki
Don't have an account?
Register
Advertisement
Register
The Mountain Goats Wiki
The Mountain Goats Wiki
2,548
pages
in: Tallahassee songs, Video, Alpha songs

Old College Try

Edit
Old College Try
C4ub4

Album

Tallahassee

Released

2002

Artist

the Mountain Goats

Length

2:53

Previous track

"Have to Explode"

Next Track

"Oceanographer's Choice"

Old College Try is the 12th song on the album Tallahassee. It was performed by Mosaic on Tallahassee Turns Ten.

Lyrics[]

From the housetops to the gutters
From the ocean to the shore
The warning signs have all been bright and garish
Far too great in number to ignore 

From the cities to the swamplands
From the highways to the hills
Our love has never had a leg to stand on
From the aspirins to the cross-tops to the Elavils
But I will walk down to the end with you
If you will come all the way down with me

From the entrance to the exit
Is longer than it looks from where we stand
I want to say I'm sorry for stuff I haven't done yet
Things will shortly get completely out of hand
I can feel it in the rotten air tonight
In the tips of my fingers
In the skin on my face
In the weak last gasp of the evening's dying light
In the way those eyes I've always loved illuminate this place
Like a trashcan fire in a prison cell
Like the searchlights in the parking lots of hell
I will walk down to the end with you
If you will come all the way down with me

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]

  • "This was the first song I wrote for Tallahassee." -- 2005-07-02 - Old American Can Factory - Brooklyn, NY
  • "This is a song which I wrote for the people who are in love, and, and -- yeah. Because sometimes you're in love and then you know, you get a feeling. But it's a different feeling. It's a feeling of doom. And then you say to yourself, 'Oh, I'm just worrying, I'm just a person who worries, there really is nothing wrong...' But then, there's the reasonable voice that's saying, 'No, no, there's really no doom just around the corner, lurking in a big old suit, getting ready to claw out everybody's eyes. That's irrational.' Right? And then the part of you, the more spiritual part that always has a lock on the truth, says, 'Oh no, something very, very bad is going to happen.'" -- 2005-10-29 - Bowery Ballroom - New York, NY
  • "This is a song about looking into the eyes of your beloved and saying 'Let's have a staring contest.'" -- 2009-10-10 - Queen Elizabeth Hall - London, England
  • "When I was writing Tallahassee I sort of had a cinematic vision for it and I wanted... being the first song on the album, to me it's sort of the introductory... it was stage play. This is the one where the characters see one another from across the stage and meet one another's gaze and think 'I will be standing when you are no longer standing.'" -- 2021-09-23 - The Queen - Wilmington, DE

Things Referenced in this Song[]

Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]

Videos of this Song[]



Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
Advertisement

Fan Feed

More The Mountain Goats Wiki