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in: Get Lonely songs, Video, The Jordan Lake Sessions: Volumes 3 and 4 songs

Woke Up New

Edit
Woke Up New
GetLonelyFrontCover

Album

 Get Lonely

Released

 2006

Artist

the Mountain Goats

Length

2:57

Previous Track

"Song for Lonely Giants"

Next Track

"If You See Light"

Woke Up New is the ninth song on the album Get Lonely. It also appears as the third song on the 2021 live album The Jordan Lake Sessions: Volumes 3 and 4. A music video, directed by Rian Johnson, was made for the song and is viewable on Johnson's Vimeo.

Lyrics[]

On the morning when I woke up without you for the first time
I felt free and I felt lonely and I felt scared
And I began to talk to myself almost immediately
Not being used to being the only person there

The first time I made coffee for just myself, I made too much of it
But I drank it all just cause you hate it when I let things go to waste
And I wandered through the house like a little boy lost in the mall
And an astronaut could've seen the hunger in my eyes from space

And I sang
Oh, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
What do I do without you?

On the morning when I woke up without you for the first time
I was cold so I put on a sweater and I turned up the heat
And the walls began to close in and I felt so sad and frightened
I practically ran from the living room out into the street

And the wind began to blow and the trees began to pant
And the world in its cold way started coming alive
And I stood there like a businessman waiting for the train
And I got ready for the future to arrive

And I sang
Oh, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
What do I do without you?

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]

  • "A lot of the songs I write are about situations that you're not likely to literally find yourself in. One hopes you can find a figurative use for them, you know, but the whole skeleton costume story, for example, if that happens to you, then you have better things to do with your money than buy records and listen to music. Therapy, jail... But this song is about something that -- I don't even know what I mean by this -- something that I hope everybody has had the pleasure of experiencing. That moment of profound desperation when you think, uh, the precious relationship I had that made me feel whole, uh, is gone, and I won't ever get it back, and this is a song for that moment." -- 2009-03-20 - Attucks Theatre - Norfolk, VA
  • "I write a fair number of [breakup songs], there's no question about that. But this is sort of like, uh, you know, well, it's sort of like the term 'flesh wound', right. You can say it's only a flesh wound in order to express to somebody that they won't in fact die, right. But a flesh wound can cause you to lose one or all limbs and that's still technically a flesh wound. And then there you are with no arms and no legs saying, you know, people think this is just a flesh wound, fuck these people, I have to be carried from room to room and I don't like it. It's terrible. I remember when I had arms and legs and it was awesome, and now I don't have them, it's bad, I do the best I can without them, and I try to be hopeful every day, but at the same time, whither my arms and legs? It's the same with me and breakup songs, people say, oh, yes, it's a breakup song. Yes, it's a song about a person for whom everything has just now collapsed. Just now. And, and to me that remains a compelling subject always." -- 2009-03-29 - Kenyon College - Gambier, OH
  • "This song takes place on a day that most people have at some point or another, when ... it's like time travel, but without all the fun parts of time travel. You wake up, and I've said this a bunch of times, and I always feel subconscious when I'm saying something that I've said before but [inaudible], you wake up, and for about –– depending on how fast wake up, somewhere between ten seconds and thirty seconds –– y'know, you have that drowsy ... wake-up feeling. And then you remember the events of the day before, and they come rushing in on you, like a wave, because a great change took place in your life yesterday. A huge change. Maybe you wake up alone for the first time in a year, or in five years, or in ten, right? Or, or maybe you'd already been waking up alone, but you hadn't made a final call about what that meant. And then, now the meaning of that has been elucidated for you and any other partner or partners in this situation. And so ... you have those ten seconds. You’d like to think more about them once the wave comes in, but you're underwater now. And when you're underwater, you can't think about the seconds that you were enjoying before you found yourself way way down in the water. This is called Woke Up New." 2013-10-13 - People's Place - Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • "This song is in C sharp." –– 2018-08-31 - The Wilbury - Tallahassee, FL
  • "Had a very productive day in 2006 or 7 at a Holiday Inn Express in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Peter and I were, were parked there between shows, next to the largest mall in the history of the world. There's probably larger ones, but I don't actually believe it. I think this mall contained like, like, like vast multitudes that you can't see from the outside or measure with a measuring tape. 'Cause there was nobody in there but the one guy working the Rosetta Stone booth. I bought the Rosetta Stone Learn Thai language thing that day, and, and that's why that's why I [don't really?] speak Thai, 'cause I sort of put it on a shelf. I can ask you how you're doing and tell you that I'm fine. Um ... this is a song that I wrote after wandering through the mall, and feeling desperately alone in there because it was just me ... and the Rosetta Stone guy." –– 2022-05-03 - Crescent Ballroom - Phoenix, AZ

Things Referenced in this Song[]

Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]

Videos of this Song[]


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