The Diaz Brothers

The Diaz Brothers
	;
Album	Transcendental Youth
Released	2012
Artist	the Mountain Goats
Length	2:46
Previous track	"Night Light"
Next track	"Counterfeit Florida Plates"

The Diaz Brothers is the eighth song on the album Transcendental Youth. It also appears as the ninth song on the 2020 live album The Jordan Lake Sessions: Volumes 1 and 2.

Lyrics[]

Cops and robbers, strictly bargain line
Spend the wet night tracking visions through the pines
Draw my arms into my hospital gown
See the sky open up and rain down
Rain down

Mercy for the Diaz brothers
Mercy for the Diaz brothers

Hear my rivals on the western wind
Hard to know who might or might not be your friend
Work by the plutonian light
Forbidden rosary prayers all night
All night

Mercy for the Diaz brothers
Mercy for the Diaz brothers

Beam of a flashlight
All night in the woods
Hunt us like dogs
And then string us up for good

Keep one step ahead of enemies
Foretell worse things than such frightful nights as these
Lead us to the beach by our hands
And bury us there in the sand

Mercy for the Diaz brothers
Mercy for the Diaz brothers
Mercy for the Diaz brothers
Mercy for the Diaz brothers

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]

"Frank tells Tony he has to respect the Diaz brothers, and Tony tells him to eff the Diaz Brothers, and by the time we do see them, they're dead. I'm obsessed with people we never got to know but who we know about, because you have a sense of who they were and what became of them since they died, but they're essentially blocking characters in this story we all know. And we're all basically blocking characters in life, when you think about it." -- Mountain Goats' John Darnielle Discusses the 'Satan Record' (Rolling Stone)
"This song is about how it is extraordinarly important that we have mercy on the Diaz Brothers. It's called 'The Diaz Brothers.'" -- 2012-01-31 - Visulite Theatre - Charlotte, NC
"This song was written while watching the film Scarface with a 3-month-old baby in my arm. I would do it again. It was written because when these particular characters were mentioned, the baby smiled. And I thought, well, I should do something with that, so I wrote a song about paranoid visions in a hospital. I encourage all new parents to do the same." -- 2012-12-14 - The Fillmore - San Francisco, CA

Things Referenced in this Song[]

The titular Diaz Brothers were minor characters in the 1983 movie Scarface.

Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]

Videos of this Song[]

Transcendental Youth
Track list: "Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1" • "Lakeside View Apartments Suite" • "Cry for Judas" • "Harlem Roulette" • "White Cedar" • "Until I Am Whole" • "Night Light" • "The Diaz Brothers" • "Counterfeit Florida Plates" • "In Memory of Satan" • "Spent Gladiator 2" • "Transcendental Youth" Bonus tracks: "Steal Smoked Fish" • "Tomorrow"

The Jordan Lake Sessions: Volumes 1 and 2

Track list: "The Plague" • "Aulon Raid" • "Cry for Judas" • "Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1" • "Until I Am Whole" • "Younger" • "Heel Turn 2" • "Southwestern Territory" • "The Diaz Brothers" • "Genesis 30:3" • "1 Samuel 15:23" • "Heretic Pride" • "Estate Sale Sign • "Getting Into Knives" • "Lion's Teeth" • "This Year" • "No Children" • "Lovecraft in Brooklyn" • "Tollund Man" • "Cotton" • "Pigs That Ran Straightaway into the Water, Triumph Of" • "In League with Dragons" • "Southwood Plantation Road" • "Lakeside View Apartments Suite" • "Tallahassee" • "My Little Panda" • "Love Cuts the Strings" • "International Small Arms Traffic Blues" • "Stabbed to Death Outside San Juan" • "Damn These Vampires" • "Foreign Object" • "Golden Boy" • "See America Right" • "Up the Wolves" • "This Year" • "Spent Gladiator 2"

The Diaz Brothers

Contents

Lyrics[]

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]

Things Referenced in this Song[]

Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]

Videos of this Song[]

Fan Feed

The Diaz Brothers

Album	Transcendental Youth
Released	2012
Artist	the Mountain Goats
Length	2:46
Previous track	"Night Light"
Next track	"Counterfeit Florida Plates"