Media

The Mountain Goats: "Matthew 25:21" (Stream)

7:41 p.m. · September 3, 2009 · by Jenna Humphrey

Matthew 25 tells the parable of a master granting talents to his servants so that they will capitalize upon them and, in turn, help him grow his wealth. This song is about a person dying of cancer -- songwriter John Darnielle is watching the death of a person who is perhaps his own master:

“Beyond the cancer and the chemotherapy

You were a presence full of light upon this earth

And I am a witness unto to your life and to its worth.”

But Darnielle is incompetent. He sings of an 18-wheeler he is driving that will soon crash, and later, the plane he is piloting, with an engine soon to fail. All he can hope for is that “we’re all in crash position when we hit.”

It’s a blend he could patent, one of tenderness and doom.

This is the second song to be released online off of Darnielle’s upcoming album, The Life of the World to Come.

Stream at the Hype Machine. 

[Via Stereogum]