Put your hand on the goddamn radio

If you haven't downloaded the mix from the post below this one, well, I'm pretty sure it singlehandedly willed the weather in NYC to actually be Springy. Not sayin' just sayin'. Anyways, here we go.



204. the Mountain Goats - "Pure Milk" (from the Hot Garden Stomp album, Shrimper Records, 1993)

There's tape hiss, booze, violent fantasy, less the wholesome characters; a lot of things the Mountain Goats cover often and well. And then there's "put your hand on the god damn radio", which I think is one of the best hooks John Darnielle's ever written and gets stuck in my head all the time.

I think of hooks more as musical than lyrical things, usually, but the Mountain Goats are a great example of a band that uses its lyrics (in addition to the music, obviously) to get songs stuck in your head. I don't think there's all that much in the melody of the way John sings "put your hand on the goddamn radio" that makes it a great pop hook, but the phrase in the context of the song (and in itself, really) for some reason seems to me so goddamn cool that I find myself singing it in my head and out loud often. Catchy lyrics, I guess.