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
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
This song title refers to Darnielle’s childhood love of fantasy novels, which he unceremoniously ditched during an adolescent attempt to seem cooler; referring to this in a 2015 Stereogum interview, he says:
The fact that I was into unicorns and dragons? You know how important it is to not get off...
[Verse 1]
Drawn to the dark
Covered by the blood when possible
Call to the corners
To any open crucible
Easy to reach
Bearing every mark unmissably
Wanna leave behind some token of what I carried with me
Search in the storm drains
Sleep in the underpasses
Try hard to look hard
Behind my blackout sunglasses
[Chorus]
But I have high unicorn tolerance
I have high unicorn tolerance
I have high unicorn tolerance
I have high unicorn tolerance
[Verse 2]
Swim with real sharks
Those who never speak when spoken to
Hard limits fade into memory
Once broken through
Scaling the well
Every single day instinctively
Feel shame real shame
For what my friends must think of me
Dig through the graveyard
Rub the bones against my face
It gets real nice around the graveyard
Once you've acquired the taste
And when the clouds do clear away
Get a momentary chance to see
The thing I've been trying to beat to death
The soft creature that I used to be
The better animal I used to be
Draw where I'm drawn
Seldom wonder why, just follow you
Never blame the rags that swallowed me
For the place the river took me to
Long life to the spiders
Safe travels to the crows
Love to the ghosts
Who taught me everything I know
[Chorus]
But I have high unicorn tolerance
I have high unicorn tolerance
But I have high unicorn tolerance
I have high unicorn tolerance
Unicorn Tolerance was written by John Darnielle.
Unicorn Tolerance was produced by Brandon Eggleston.
The Mountain Goats released Unicorn Tolerance on Fri May 19 2017.
John Darnielle before playing this song at The Filmore in San Francisco, CA on June 02, 2017:
As I say, “Wear Black” is a Portland song, and so is this…. I was in the process of trying to bury the good young me who had been under assault for a little while, and when you’ve been under assault for a...