The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
“An Antidote for Strychnine” is a song about the isolation and pain of the creative process. On the podcast I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats, John Darnielle explains that the process of him learning how to write songs was a lonely one. He felt like he was trying to “cure” something within himself...
[Verse 1]
Dig around in the garbage
Save up some halibut bones in a jar
Scrape a winter's worth of salt deposits
From the rusty frame of my car
Ask the experts, maybe they'll know
[Verse 2]
Call up my teacher in Cambridge
See what he remembers
Throw white phosphorus in the fireplace
Look for clues in the embers
Call the hotline, give them a phony last name
[Chorus]
Try to find
An antidote for strychnine
Tryin' to find
An antidote for strychnine
[Verse 3]
Time's running short
Always seems to run shorter
Have some supplies sent
From up just past the northern border
Keep a line out to the people who take the long view
[Verse 4]
Only share my research
With sick lab rats like me
Trapped behind the beakers
And the Erlenmeyer flasks
Cut off from the world, I may not ever get free
But I may one day
[Chorus]
Tryin' to find
An antidote for strychnine
Try to find
An antidote for strychnine
[Bridge]
So many suffering from the same affliction
Coming up on the breakthrough
The clock's ticking
[Verse 5]
Dig down amongst my calculations
Check my math
Up there on the surface
Everybody's getting ready for the bloodbath
Stem the tide, stem the tide
They're calling down for reinforcements
[Chorus]
Tryin' to find
An antidote for strychnine
Tryin' to find
An antidote for strychnine
An Antidote for Strychnine was written by John Darnielle.
An Antidote for Strychnine was produced by Owen Pallett.
The Mountain Goats released An Antidote for Strychnine on Fri Apr 26 2019.