There are essentially three categories of sequels: Sequels everyone wants (The Godfather Part II, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse), sequels nobody really wanted (Space Jam: A New Legacy, Blues Brothers 2000) and sequels nobody knew they wanted until they arrived (Mad Max: Fury Road, Blade Runner 2049).
The Mountain Goats are entering the third category with the band's new album, Jenny from Thebes (out Oct. 27 via Merge Records). The new LP offers a rock opera centered on the titular Jenny, a character who first appeared on the Mountain Goats touchstone 2002 album All Hail West Texas, subsequently making brief cameos on the albums Jam Eater Blues and Transcendental Youth. And while few lyricists come anywhere close to matching the Mountain Goats' frontman John Darnielle's prosaic knack for writing characters in songs (he is a National Book Award and Edgar Award nominated novelist after all), dedicating a whole album to a sequel wasn't ever really in his songwriting plans until it came about naturally.
"I actually try not to be in a sequel headspace, because I think that if you're doing that, then you're kind of second-guessing yourself. Some artists are good at that. You know, 'Now I'm gonna follow up on this. I'm really going to answer this thing I said before.' But I kind of have to be in the moment and not think about what I did before," says Darnielle. "That's how this album got written. I was just playing a song in a minor key, and I mentioned Jenny's name, and I was like, 'Oh, that would be kind of transgressive to bring back this whole character.'"
Part of the challenge of the process for Darnielle was reconnecting with this character he created briefly decades prior. During the All Hail West Texas era, Darnielle was a completely different person — a mental health worker in Iowa who'd use his vacation time to tour the solo lo-fi side project that was the Mountain Goats. Now he's a father of two living with his wife in North Carolina, and the Mountain Goats are a fully fleshed out band with one of the most devoted fan bases of any indie act. But his own transformation made examining Jenny's life all the more narratively interesting in contrast.
"Coming back to the character, thematically, Jenny was always a person who was disappearing," says Darnielle. "That seems more imaginable when you're in your late 20s, early 30s than it does once you have an established personhood. I could no sooner disappear from my own life, then I could actually... you know... fly."
The early-released singles offer glimpses into what Jenny from Thebes has to reveal about Jenny. The upbeat pop rock of the album-opening "Clean Slate" sets the scene, chronicling the often down-on-their-luck folks who crash at southwestern ranch style house that the motorcycling-riding Jenny rents in West Texas. "Fresh Tattoo" sonically shifts from reflective piano ballad to horn-laden rocker, capturing a day when Jenny gets her first tat and takes in what might be a soon-to-be consequential stranger in need of help. "Murder at the 18th Street Garage" crackles with violent rock glee, suggesting a death that may be partially responsible for Jenny's ever-fleeing ways.
Sequels may not be in Darinelle's comfort zone, but that's exactly the point.
"Normally, I'm kind of against sequels. I don't do 10 year anniversary album tours and stuff like that," says Darnielle. "So for me, it was a way of saying, 'Well, here's something you don't normally do. Do that.' Sort of a formal challenge."
Before the Mountain Goats release the sequel that is Jenny From Thebes (and stop in Spokane for a concert at the Fox on Oct. 9), we caught up with Darnielle so that he could share five of his favorite sequels in his own words.
"PIRAGUA (REPRISE)"
FROM IN THE HEIGHTS
"Piragua" is the song you hear near the top [of the musical], sung by the guy selling ices on the street. But the thing about this for me is my son Roman, he likes the reprise better than anything else in any given musical, and he's super into musicals right now. So he always wants to hear the reprise first and most often. And so that's the one that I hear almost daily right now. [Laughs] And it's great because it's a very memorable melody. When it first comes out, it's just a guy selling fruit ice. And then at the end, after the blackout, he raises the price and he defeats [his ice cream truck rival] Mr. Softee. So it's kind of a great revisiting of a character who seemed minor when he was introduced, but he's actually kind of a major character in the story of the neighborhood.
"YOUR GOLD TEETH II"
BY STEELY DAN
So the original "Your Gold Teeth" is on Countdown to Ecstasy. And it's a bossa. It's pretty wry and winsome, and they're young men. But it's only a year or two later that they make "Your Gold Teeth II," and it's a much more wistful look at what was a very sort of sarcastic and brutal song just a couple of years before. It's only been a couple years, like they're not appreciably older. [Laughs]
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA:
TEARS OF THE KINGDOM
As far as follow-ups go, I had a whole list of video games. But Tears of the Kingdom is one of the greatest sequels imaginable.
It incorporates all of the previous lore from everything. The way that you can go get the clothes that refer to all the other games is so miraculous. You don't need any of those clothes, right? The Windwaker stuff is my favorite because it's one of the less celebrated [Zelda games] because it was a different style with the cel-shaded animation. But I thought it was a beautiful game to play, and it had one of the best soundtracks. Being able to have those costumes and Tears of the Kingdom [is amazing].
It's about memory. A lot of it is about your memory of the old melodies, the way that it revisits every last aspect of the franchise. It's a sequel in a real sense, because it's the same story. It's always gonna be the same story — you're gonna beat the guy. [Laughs] That's it, right? So if it's always the same story, how can we make that denser? And how can you make it about you as a player? Because most of the people playing it have done this story before, right? And so part of it's about that, it becomes self-referential.
But what's beautiful about it [is it can also be your first Zelda game]. Tears of the Kingdom is a very welcoming game. When writing sequels, one thing you want to do is make anybody who wasn't there for the earlier thing feel like that if they just got on here, that's fine. You don't want to tell them to have to read the first two books before they can come in. You should be able to get on at any point, but also get more out of it after a while if you revisit the prior material. I could go on all day about this game because it's so perfect.
GARVEY'S GHOST
BY BURNING SPEAR
So Burning Spear, one of the great reggae artists, makes an amazing record called Marcus Garvey in sort of the high days of reggae splashing internationally. The dubbed version of it is called Garvey's Ghost, and it's one of the seminal texts of dub. It's an unbelievably great record. And the thing about Marcus Garvey is that that album itself is just a monolith. If there was no dubbed version, it's a perfect record. But the dubbed version isn't just a dub, it's these mighty, seismic, glacial moments of dub. It's one of the greatest revisitings of something imaginable.
JONI MITCHELL PERFORMING
"BOTH SIDES NOW"
LIVE IN 2000 "Both Sides Now" was a song Joni Mitchell wrote when she was very young. It's a very precocious song where she's talking about having seen life from a naive side and from a more seasoned side. And to be 22 saying you've really seen both sides of everything is pretty wild.But when she sings this song that she herself wrote 50 years ago — I believe it was at the Kennedy Center — she enriches the performance. Musically, tonally, in terms of extensions of chords that she wasn't playing the original. It's pretty incredible.
It's one thing about sequels — you can revisit just in performance, right? You don't actually have to change that much. Heraclitus says you can't step in the same river twice. But to revisit something is inherently transformative. ♦
The Mountain Goats, Mikaela Davis • Mon, Oct. 9 at 7:30 pm • $35-$55 • All ages • The Fox Theater • 1001 W. Sprague Ave. • foxtheaterspokane.org
