Boop boop, necro’ing this because I really want to talk about this album.

I’ve spent a lot of time with it in the past couple months, and it grows on you. (Really, tMG as a whole is like that — even as a long-standing fan, it takes a few times through an album for me to really come to appreciate it.) It’s probably one of the most complex of John Darnielle’s albums thus far, with a lot of big band elements.

As I mentioned before, I’ve never followed wrestling, but the album has piqued my interest. Many of the songs — like the Legend of Chavo Guerrero and Hair Match — are told, in part, through the eyes of a child who truly loved these stage personas; the Legend of Chavo Guerrero is especially powerful to me because — like John Darnielle — I was a child who had to look to fiction for the guidance that I failed to get from my guardian figures.

Choked Out has become something of a power anthem to me, since beginning this thread. There is an immense amount of desperation and struggle in the voice of the song, but also sheer tenacity. It paints a picture of being most alive at your lowest point, which is a common theme in John’s music (see also: Steal Smoked Fish, or pretty much anything on the album The Sunset Tree.)

The Ballad of Bull Ramos is heartwarming, though I barely know who Bull Ramos was. The connecting theme is satisfaction in a simple life, even after the ‘glory days’ have ended. Yes, he dies, and after a woefully slow decline, but — at least in John’s mind — there is always beauty in a life having been lived.

I think all the songs paint a vivid picture, but I’m rather biased. It’s my opinion that it’s a point in the album’s credit that it could make someone who, frankly, could care less about Manly Soap Operas ^TM at least passingly interested in the characters, the actors, and their fates.

Neverthrive said
Wrestling is lame, for the most part. A few of the songs on there that I’ve listened to were catchy though, but I don’t even remember what I happened to have heard.   

You and your mom both can suck a dick, I don’t know why I recommend anything to your family.

Neverthrive said

What my mom does with her mouth is none of my business. She’s a grown as woman.   

I think if she did more with her mouth she’d have a lot fewer problems, if ya know what I mean.

Neverthrive said

The fuck you trying to imply about my mama, guy?   

I’m implyin’ that she shoulda swallowed you, pal.

Also your brother.

But not your sister.

Neverthrive said
You stay away from my sister.  

You know, for only 13 she’s got some big tits.