Sweden

Sweden
	;
Released	October 24, 1995
Length	45:19
Label	Shrimper Records

Sweden is The Mountain Goats' second studio album. It was released in 1995, under the label Shrimper.

Tracks[]

"The Recognition Scene" -- 2:50
"Downtown Seoul" -- 2:53
"Some Swedish Trees" -- 2:05
"I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone" (Buddy Johnson) -- 2:35
"Deianara Crush" -- 1:53
"Whole Wide World" -- 2:13
"Flashing Lights" -- 2:30
"Sept 19th Triple X Love! Love!" -- 2:24
"Going to Queens" -- 2:26
"Tahitian Ambrosia Maker" -- 1:47
"Going to Bolivia" -- 1:37
"Tollund Man" -- 2:34
"California Song" -- 1:55
"Snow Crush Killing Song" -- 2:46
"Send Me an Angel" -- 1:47
"Neon Orange Glimmer Song" -- 3:08
"FM" (Steely Dan) -- 1:45
"Prana Ferox" -- 4:05
"Cold Milk Bottle" -- 2:06

Trivia[]

"I've Got the Sex" was originally supposed to be the first track on the album, but was left off due to John accidentally forgetting its tape when mastering.
A sequel to the album entitled Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg was recorded but never released.
Although the album is one of the more popular earlier releases, some current members of the Mountain Goats apparently do not think much of it today, including Peter Hughes, who declared it to be objectively worse than "our last few records"^[1].
(About the album title) "People keep asking me that. In Germany, when they ask me that, it's because they think I'm a fascist. It's true. It's because they think, this guy likes Sweden, he must be one of those skinhead types. But I'm not, but I grew up watching Bergman movies, Wild Strawberries, Cries and Whispers, and I saw Fanny and Alexander the week it came out in the US, and I love that stuff and I love the plays of August Strindberg, a lot, I love them. And also, I'm from California, now, can you picture US geography? So you know, California, it's the west end. You pass California, you drop off the face of the earth. I've always loved places like that. I'm rethinking all of this because of where I live now, which is Iowa, but my first love has always been places that are so extreme that you either can't go any further or you can never leave, right. And so, Sweden, I found out last year, in fact, parts of Norway are further north than Sweden, but to those of us in the West, when you think of Sweden, you think of, that's the top of the world. It's not going any higher. You cannot -- if you're running away from something, you can't run much further than to go to Sweden." -- 1996-11-02 - Gothenburg Radio - Gothenburg, Sweden