One Winter at Point Alpha Privative

One Winter at Point Alpha Privative
Album	Taboo VI: The Homecoming
Released	1991
Artist	the Mountain Goats
Length	1:25
Previous track	"Don't Take the Dogs Away"
Next track	"Solomon Revisited"

One Winter at Point Alpha Privative is the sixth song on The Mountain Goats' first cassette, Taboo VI: The Homecoming.

Lyrics

What the hell kind of deal is it here anyway? 
How much does it cost and how long can you stay? 
Should we dance? should we sing? should we curse? should we pray? 
Do I have to hang on every single word that you say? 
Every hour, every minute, every second of the day 
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. 

What the hell's going on at the edges of your faces?
Is there something eating you? Will it leave a single trace? 
Will it take your pretty features and lay them all to waste?
Could we sit down over there? could we sit down any place?
Can you feel the spirit moving? can you feel god's grace? 
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. 

Ever since I've married you I've wondered what it means.
That every single shirt I owned has bursted at the seams
Every single piece of clothing, every last pair of jeans, 
All the reds, all the whites, all the yellows, all the greens. 
I'm sure that there's a reason all of this is happening. 
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song

• "I'll tell you something about this song. It has a lot of words. The fellow who wrote that, he had a lot to say. So this is the first of the Alpha songs, uh, which was, uh, the project that gave birth to the Mountain Goats. I was writing these poems called 'Songs from Point Alpha Privative', and, uh, but I was discovering with poems, nobody wanted to read any poems. You show up, you show up with your poems, people, they're busy, they have a thing to do. But if you're writing poems, probably, like, I'd like some attention for these poems, it's why I write them, because I need attention. So I started setting them to music, and then they seemed less offensive then. So, uh, yeah, that's where they, that's where they went went. And also it opens you up to using a lot more rhyme, because rhyme on the page, the people who do want to read poetry don't want to read the stuff that rhymes. People who listen to songs, which are better than poems, are totally into rhymes. So this song is a repeating A-A-A-A rhyme scheme." -- 2014-06-15 - Bottom of the Hill - San Francisco, CA

Live Shows this Song Was Played at

• 2014-06-15 - Bottom of the Hill - San Francisco, CA