Get Lonely

Mountain Goats | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 22, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: 4ad / Ada
• ASIN: B000GH3CNE
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,966 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

On the Mountain Goats' previous albums, songwriter John Darnielle bluntly sang about broken marriages and broken souls. With 2005's The Sunset Tree, meanwhile, he took on his abusive stepfather using surprising vitriol for a squeaky voiced indie rocker armed with just an acoustic guitar. On Get Lonely, Darnielle seems to have found a certain sense of peace, settling into a series of supple songs that evoke sad-eyed folkies such as Belle & Sebastian ("Half Dead") and Cat Stevens ("Maybe Sprout Wings"). But through the dark clouds, he also exhibits a sly sense of humor, particularly singing to a departed lover in "Woke Up New." It's hard to think of anything funnier or more depressing than the lines, "The first time I made coffee for just myself/ I made too much of it/ But I drank it all/ Just cause you hate it when I let things go to waste." --Aidin Vaziri

Product Description

"Get Lonely" is every bit as assured as its predecessor, "The Sunset Tree", but the mood is entirely different. "Sunset" chronicled the fraught, violent relationship between John Darnielle and his stepfather and derived its power from an unblinking exorcism of personal demons, while "Get Lonely" is the haunted aftermath. It's a reflective, intimate record. The mood is one of bittersweet resignation rather than cathartic release. It's a quiet triumph, murmuring with a modest but entirely surefooted confidence. An uncannily coherent and subtly redemptive record which will come to be seen as Mountain Goats' most resonant, assured, and magical collection of songs so far.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Save it for Spring, November 6, 2006

By 

Deborah Bancroft (Upper Right Corner, US) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Get Lonely (Audio CD)

Certainly everyone should buy this CD now -- I mean, keep the cash flow flowing -- but if you actally have had a bad breakup or, God forbid, have just lost someone you love, do not listen to it now. If you do, you will sob and sob and sob. Then "Get Lonely" itself will come on and you will sob some more. Then you will try to listen to this two years from now and you won't be able to, which will be a shame because it is really good.

And if you have seasonal depression (which is no damn joke, haters) save this one for April. I gave this the prerequisite MG "three or four times through to get the gist" and then set it aside. Oy vey already with the soft tendrils of sorrow enfolding and entwining...

The point being that I don't know how John Darnielle gets into the corner of the collective unconscious where words waiting to be written are stored, but he does. And then he seems to throw them down like pick-up sticks, each line finding its own perfect shape and place. And then you're pulled over on the side of the road hitting "repeat" again and again because that song is *your* theme song, *your* heartbreak, *your* family, *your* drunken mistake. And if having a heartbreak song like the ones on Get Lonely might *lead* to a drunken mistake... well. That's all I'm saying.

I also found myself thinking a lot about melody listening to this CD. As a reasonable singer and really terrible guitarist, I frequently regale myself with the MG songbook acapella and sometimes find myself thinking "Huh. That song actually has only four notes." Separating tunes (mainly earlier ones) from their yummy arrangements leaves them a bit nekkid. Listening back over these later CDs, and Get Lonely especially, the melodies do not depend so much on just that one arrangement, but stand by themselves and invite other interpretations. (And hast thou been to a vocal coach, John? Upper register sounding really nice!)

OK, there you go: good CD, mellow and sad, do not listen if you actually are lonely. I give this CD only four stars because you gotta have somewhere to go when the Canadians take the ice.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars And it sounds kinda like this..., August 22, 2006

By 

David Skalicky "CountVonSexy" (Fort Wayne, IN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Get Lonely (Audio CD)

Tallahassee. We Shall All Be Healed. The Sunset Tree. Fresh off his "proper" trilogy with producer John Vanderslice, Darnielle decides to "Get Lonely" (Costello. "Get Happy!!!", Anyone? Anyone?). So, what does it sound like? Well...it plays in the same vein of "Sunset Tree". If you were hoping for a return to form, best to look elsewhere--but that may be a half-truth. While the album certainly is polished and layed, it' quiet and intimate too. In that sense, it is much more like Darnielle's earlier work, rather than his studio stuff. It's been a while since we've just had John and his guitar strumming along. But it happens more often than not on this outing. The lyrics are just as sharp as ever, but there's nothing really on here that will hold a candle up to Darnielle's best work--but come on, who am I kidding? It's the MOUNTAIN GOATS, it's ALL good. There is no possible way to hate this album, it's smart, sad, and catchy. What else could you possibly want to mope to? Standouts, there are: "Half Dead," "Get Lonely," and (The Not Really New) "Woke Up New". If you're new to THE MOUNTAIN GOATS, it's best to start with Tallahassee--and then maybe cheack out some of Darnielle's earlier work and work your way here. But if you're a seasoned fan...Why are you even reading this, just buy the damned thing and be done with it, you fool!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a quiet masterpiece, July 6, 2007

By 

Martin G. Walker (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Get Lonely (Audio CD)

From the opening notes of the quiet piano, this album grips and doesn't let go. The arrangements are quiet. The lyrics are quiet. The passion is quiet. The sadness is quiet. But quiet because it doesn't need to be loud. Quiet because the effort of loudness would erode some of its power. I feel the need to play this album every two or three days. When I'm feeling in need of a musical treat I cue it up.

The lyrics are beautiful. Honest, interesting, straightforward, sad. And they are delivered with a mature finesse that is completely satisfying.