Slow West Vultures Lyrics
So it's totally unreadable
Drinking the dregs
Eating the utterly inedible
We do what we do
All for you
All dressed up
Black hat and white cane
Slowly circling the drain
Ready for the future
Ready for the world about to come
Shooting the sequel before the treatment's even finished
Sanding numbers off the Monojects
As our slight returns diminish
We are what we are
Get in the goddamn car
Smiling faces flawlessly rehearsed
We are sleek and beautiful
We are cursed
Ready for the future
Ready for the world about to come
About
Track #1 on The Mountain Goats‘ eighth full-length studio album We Shall All Be Healed.
At the end of an interview with Darnielle in Spin from 2011, the writer Joe Gross lists some Mountain Goats albums and writes that “Slow West Vultures” “is a full-band, downright electric-ish song based on our hero’s speed-freak years”.
According to Kyle Barbour’s Annotated Mountain Goats Archive, Darnielle spoke about this song on May 26, 2004 while playing a show at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco, CA, stating,
But the last time I was in San Francisco, I went to jail. That’s kind of what this song is about, if San Francisco were Portland and it was 1985 instead of last year.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
