we still have our fingernails

traits of the original poor little meow meow, suga from bts:

musician

characterized as catlike

included an audio sample of infamous cult leader jim jones (of the jonestown massacre, from which we get the phrase "don't drink the kool-aid") in a song

john darnielle is:

1. a musician

2. characterized as catlike by himself & by fans

(john darnielle's twitter, @goingtothebes)

3. included an audio sample of infamous cult leader jim jones (of the jonestown massacre, from which we get the phrase "don't drink the kool-aid") in the song going to kansas as released on the hound chronicles in 1992.

(an alternate version of going to kansas which does not include the sample was released on nothing for juice in 1996. that's the version most people will be familiar with—it is streamable and the hound chronicles is not. going to kansas is not the only alternate recording that was included on nothing for juice and both re-releases have different instrumental backing if i remember correctly).

so by definition. unless there's a third person who hits all of these criteria, john darnielle is one of only two poor little meow meows in the world.

kind of obsessed with this song because it makes absolutely no sense to me like okay a guy is in a bank line, broke, with blood capsules in his mouth. What the fuck is he actually doing? How does he make money off of this? Then I checked the big tmg book looking for answers and john darnielle basically has the exact same take away I did so at least we are confused together

Well thank you so much! The way we usually work in the studio means that that wasn’t necessarily going to happen - I lost the ability to write musical notation (I could re-learn it I’m sure but it’d be a slog) when I stopped studying piano formally when I was young, so when I play in the studio, I’m playing from my own charts, which are chord names written in sequence on the cards they use in comic-book bags. Every take’s a little different, especially as a session progress - I’ll throw in different beginnings or whatever to keep myself anchored in the moment. (I envy the steely discipline and spiritual presence of session musicians who don’t need any of this romantic hoo-hah and who just keep playing until the producers get what they want.) I think that was a third or fourth take - or possibly a revisiting of one we hadn’t been able to nail the day before - and since the song starts with unaccompanied piano & voice waiting for the band to drop in, I had leisure to start it however I wanted. So I hit that note and it just sorta went I AM HERE, LISTEN TO ME and held it & I think the vibe of it translated to Peter & Jon too (the instrumental is live, I’m pretty sure the vocal is too on that one) and we got a take we liked.