"The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton"

Having taken indie rock lyrics to task in my last post, it's time to say something good about the Mountain Goats.

Mountain Goats, "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton" (from All Hail West Texas)


At first listen, I didn't like this song. A self-consciously lo-fi recording of a relatively unexciting guitar progression, the song initially struck me as a snarky hipster joke about metal. I knew songwriter John Darnielle has a genuine love for headbangers, as evidenced in his excellent novel about Black Sabbath fandom, but this song's precocious tale of two kids' confused attempts at starting a band seemed more in line with a pretentious college kid's idea of metal. I could already hear Williamsburg kids snickering along to the "Hail Satan" chorus in between PBR sips.

I was wrong. This song is a eulogy for a vibrant metal god dream.

The titular band's founders are two boyhood best friends named Cyrus and Jeff. They practice twice a week, stencil their names (with a pentagram) in each other's instruments and dream of living the world's greatest profession. Not content to be mere "rock stars," these guys want to be death metal gods. Sure, as rock stars they'd get myriad fans, publicity, dollars, groupies and chances to perform and record music. But Cyrus and Jeff also want to terrify parents and politicians, while confronting the darkest aspects of mankind in the loudest, fastest music imaginable. What could possibly be more audacious and appealing?

It doesn't matter that the duo doesn't really seem to get death metal. They can't agree on a band name, and their plausible choices--"Satan's Fingers," "the Killers" and "the Hospital Bombers," all sound even less metal than "Wyld Stallyns." The belief that their chosen path will earn them "stage lights and learjets and fortune and fame" is a little absurd, given that the highest-selling death metal album in history sold under 200,000 copies (and was issued by a cartoon.)

But no matter. These are best friends with a dream that's real enough to taste. Of course, just craving death metal stardom is still dangerous enough to send Jeff to reform school (or maybe worse--Darnielle doesn't elaborate.) In the most decidedly metal act in the whole song, Jeff plots revenge on his oppressors in a letter to Cyrus. "The best ever death metal band out of Denton/will in time both outpace and outlive you," concludes Darnielle.


If this song has a contemporary, it'd be Shel Silverstein's poem "Rock n' Roll Band."


If we were a rock 'n' roll band,
We'd travel all over the land
We'd play and we'd sing and wear spangly things,
If we were a rock 'n' roll band.

If we were a rock 'n' roll band,
And we were up there on the stand,
The people would hear us and love us and cheer us,
Hurray for that rock 'n' roll band.

If we were a rock 'n' roll band,
Then we'd have a million fans,
We'd giggle and laugh and sign autographs,
If we were a rock 'n' roll band.

If we were a rock 'n' roll band,
The people would all kiss our hands,
We'd be millionaires and have extra long hair,
If we were a rock 'n' roll band.

But we ain't no rock 'n' roll band,
We're just seven kids in the sand
With homemade guitars and pails and jars
And drums pf potato chip cans.

Just seven kids in the sand,
Talkin' and wavin' our hands,
And dreamin' and thinkin' oh wouldn't it be grand,
If we were a rock 'n' roll band.