Original Air-Blue Gown

Original Air-Blue Gown
Album	Full Force Galesburg
Released	1997
Artist	the Mountain Goats
Length	2:51
Previous Track	"Minnesota"
Next Track	"It's All Here in Brownsville"

Original Air-Blue Gown is the 15th song on the album Full Force Galesburg.

Lyrics

Rain all burned away
The horseflies are an iridescent green
Plums boiled down to pulp
Drying on a screen

Bright red air inside the house here
I can barely draw breath
Dark blue shapes popped behind my eyelids
I am not afraid of death

And on the television
Black and white footage of the young Cassius Clay
My God, my God, my God
He was something

Fists flashing as he comes toward the screen
Sailing headlong into nothing
And disappearing, reappearing
Out there in the clearing
Floating down the slight breeze
That plays along the edges of the leaves
It's you
It's you
It's you

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song

• "To me, there's a very sharp division in Mountain Goats growth at this point, because there's a lot of people to this day who want the yelling-really-loud ones. I still yell loud for them. But I find it much less interesting. I just don't think it has the density, you know, the complexity. I don't judge those people, but at the same time... the quiet ones are better.... I think '97 was when I started going out on these quieter songs, there's something inside of them if I could just shut up long enough to do 'em." -- 2021-08-25 - Space - Evanston, IL

Things Referenced in this Song

• The title of the song is taken from a Thomas Hardy poem, "The Voice":

Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,

Standing as when I drew near to the town

Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,

Even to the original air-blue gown!

• Cassius Clay is the birth name of boxer Muhammad Ali.

Live Shows this Song Was Played at

• 2021-08-25 - Space - Evanston, IL

Videos of this Song

• 2021-08-25 - Space - Evanston, IL