When it comes to lyricists, Isaac Brock has no equals. No one else’s words are so bizarre. Or observant. Or perplexing. Or poignant.
Although his lyrics on Modest Mouse’s latest album We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank aren’t quite up to snuff with his previous stuff, Brock still deserves a lot of credit for being a consistently masterful wordsmith. These 10 Brock-isms that follow aren’t just my favorite Modest Mouse quips – I believe these are several of the greatest strands of words ever committed to tape.
10. “If God takes life, he’s an Indian giver” – Bukowski
9. “The moths beat themselves to death against the lights / Adding their breeze to the summer nights” – The World At Large
8. “Everyone’s a voyeurist – they’re watching me watch them, watch me right now” – Paper Thin Walls
7. “I had a drink the other day / Opinions were like kittens / I was giving them away” – Out of Gas
6. “You missed when time and life shook hands and said goodbye / When the earth folded in on itself / And said, ‘Good luck, for your sake I hope heaven and hell / Aren’t really there, but I wouldn’t hold my breath’ / You wasted life, why wouldn’t you waste death?” – Ocean Breathes Salty
5. “Oh gotta see, gotta know right now / What’s that riding on your everything? / It isn’t anything at all” – Gravity Rides Everything
4. “We kiss on the mouth, but still cough down our sleeves” – Dramamine
3. “In the place that I call home / My brain’s the cliff, and my heart’s the bitter buffalo” – Heart Cooks Brain
2. “Well God’s saying something, but he didn’t mean it / Everyone’s life ends but no one ever completes it / Dry or wet ice – they both melt, and you’re equally cheated” – Dark Center of the Universe
1. “Language is the liquid / That we’re all dissolved in / Great for solving problems / After it creates the problem” – Blame It on the Tetons
Rock Out With Your Blog Out! 
wow, Chris, impressed here. Between the Pavement blog and this one, you’re so introspective. hahaha, dig your writing style, and the consecutive Pacers comments are effecting this blog’s popularity.
How could you miss this from “The View”:
As life gets longer, awful feels softer,
and it feels pretty soft to me.
And if it takes shit to make bliss,
well I feel pretty blissfully.
If life’s not beautiful without the pain,
well I’d just rather never ever even see beauty again.
My favorite lines are: “Oh! If you could compact your conscience —
Oh! And you might…
Oh! If you could bottle and sell it you might have done —
Oh! And you might…
Oh! If you could compact your conscience —
and sell it; — save it for another time,
you know you might have to use it…”
You know, us writers do the same sort of thing. We exploit our emotions. So yeah. Good eye, Mr. Blogger.
Modest Mouse is laughing about all the money that they are making off the young, gullible, and easily manipulated. I’m not lying about that either. That statement came straight from the horses mouth.. I won’t mention names, but someone in their band said those very same words.. They sold their souls to the “Illumanati” a longtime ago.
Good picks, Nate and PtotheA. I especially like the lines from “Teeth Like God’s Shoeshine,” which I somehow missed even though it’s one of my favorite MM tunes.
Honestly, I could care less about the band taking advantage of the easily manipulated. It’s the music that matters and not the motivation. At least in most cases.
great picks. i have to admit im relativly new to modest mouse, but when i first heard them and the lyrics i was stunned and became a quick fan. very moving thought provoking stuff. the likes of which i havent encountered for a long time. and as far as “selling out” goes, if you can make money doing what you love, then why would you hold that against anyone? at least now thier message and thier greatness is reaching more people.
Yeah. I agree spxman; everyone has to make money some way or another. True.
I second that notion, you bloggers. I have some I will add as follows: The universe is on a math equation that never even ever really even is in it. The universe is shaped exactly like the earth, if you go strait along enough youll end up where you were. Eating snowflakes with plastic forks, on paper plates of course. “I’d sell off my soul for a set of new rings and some sandels with the style of straps that cling best to the era”. I could go on all day, im not worried about the financial aspect of his introspective and thought-enhancing lyric stew, it’s not why hes doin’ it. It’s a byproduct of his ability to tap into a realm where the seeming of interpretation and imagination meet.
Check out my blogs if you have time. I think you’d like them if you like his. If you have a moment and a curious mind, i’d appreciate it. I can use some constructive/destructive feedback to move the ground under my motion filled shoes.
I’ve changed my mind so much I cant even trust it
My mind changed me so much I cant even trust myself. —— Talking S**t About a Pretty Sunset
—Plus—
In the motions and the things that you say,
It all will fall, fall right into place —— Gravity Rides Everything
I probably should have made this a Top 20 list…
great list…not many of my friends listen to modest mouse so i don’t get to discuss how much i enjoy their music. my addition:
“we were spittin’ venom at most everyone we know/ if the damned gave us a roadmap then we’d know just where to go.”
“you can say what you want but don’t act like you care/ it takes more than one person to decide what’s fair/ it’s over/ think it over”
and…
“i just got a message that said yeah, hell has frozen over/ i got a phone call from the lord saying hey boy get a sweater, right now.”
Definitely dig the line from “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes”
modest mouse is amazing.
i’m in heaven tryin to figure out which stack they’re gonna stuff us atheists into when peter and his monkey laugh and i laugh with them. i’m not sure what at.
I agree with the nod to Blame it on the Tetons for having the best lyrics–they are all great, my favorite from that song, though, is “everyones a building burning/with no one to put the fire out.”
I also like, from Talking Shit about a pretty sunset, “i’v changed my mind so much I can’t even trust it/my mind changed me so much i can’t even trust myself.”
“the good times are killing me” or “have one have twenty more one mores oh and it does not relent”
“im trying to drink away the part of the day that i cannot sleep away” (theme of my past alcoholism)
so many more too, pretty much every song has at least one gem lyric, though some more recent songs not so much.
I’ve been a big Modest Mouse fan for years, actually I’m seeing them in Cincinatti tomorrow, but that aside, at work I listen to them on my iPod, and I just love all the lyrics, I could go on listing off all my favorites, and I don’t care if that makes my easily manipulated or not, haha.
My favorite lines would either have to be like, the entire lyrics to “Wild Pack of Family Dogs”, or
“I made myself a t-shirt says ‘The world is my ash tray’/Our hearts pump dust and our hairs all gray”
-He said that God takes care of himself
God takes care of himself
And you of you.-
Sorry, just had to throw my two cents in there 😉 “Styrofoam Boots … ” has fallen back into my mind after a long time, and has taken the form of an obsession.
“Someday you will die and somehow something’s gonna steal your carbon” – Parting of the Sensory
“So we carry all the groceries in
While hauling out the trash
And if this doesn’t make us motionless
I do not know what can” – Spitting Venom
Two very insightful glances into how simple parts of life aren’t always so simple, a very Modest Mouse/Isaac Brock type of observation.
We Were Dead.. is, I think, a more accomplished album than it’s been credited for. I’m liking it ALMOST more than The Moon and Antartica
I don’t post many comments online in general, but this blog has such a great topic that I just had to comment that Isaac Brock’s lyrics have long helped me with the toughest parts of my life, with insight that lingers after the music stops. The top ten list nailed most of my favorites, but here are some more that i love:
early in the morning, it pulls all down my sore feet, i wanna go back to sleep
my friends, my habits, my family, they mean so much to me, i don’t think that it’s right,
i’ve seen so many ships sail in,
just to head back out again, and go off sinking
like a joke tryin to make another joke laugh(ha ha)
there really are way too many to list
Actual Lyrics:
“I just got a message that said yeah, hell has frozen over/ I got a phone call from the lord saying hey boy get a sweater, right now.”
For a long while I thought he said:
“Hey boy guess what, right now!”
Than the second time:
“Hey boy guess what, what now!”
——————————–
Actual Lyrics:
“An endless ocean falling on an endless desert,
it’s funny as hell but no one laughs when they get there.”
I used to think he said:
“Anti-social and on his death bed, it’s funny as hell but no one laughs when they get there.”
If you give my version of the lyrics as much thought as you would Isaacs, then you’ll see they still have a pretty awesome meaning.
Anyway, I hope that was at least kind of interesting. I like to think he was trying to get them to sound ambiguous, so people could enjoy both interpetations. That’s probably definitely not true, but whatever I like it.
aawiegardt@hotmail.com
Kudos. Couldn’t agree more. Modest Mouse lyrics are pure poetry. By far one of my favorite artists.
All this talkiní all the time and the air fills up, up, up
Until there’s nothin left to breathe
And you think you feel most everything
And we know that our hearts are just made out of strings
To be pulled, strings to be pulled
So you think you’ve figured out everything
But we know that our minds are just made out of strings
To be pulled, strings to be pulled
All this talkiní all the time and the air fills up, up, up
Until there’s nothing left to breathe
Up until there’s nothin left to speak.
Up until the better parts of space
Song is a masterpiece!
More housing developments go up
Named after the things they replace
-novocain stain
And I said you shouldn’t make facts out of opinions
He said that I was right
You’re right I knew that I was
-Make Everyone Happy/Mechanical Birds
You’re the icing on the cake on the table at my wake
-You’re the good things
-Nine times out of ten our hearts just get dissolved.
Well I want a better place or just a better way to fall.
But one time out of ten, everything is perfect for us all.
-I was in heaven
I was in hell
Believe in neither
But fear them as well
-LAUGH HARD IT’S A LONG WAYS TO THE BANK
-Well we were the people
That we wanted to know
And we’re the places that we wanted to go
-You’re the icing on the cake on the table at my wake
-I’m trying to get my head clear
I push things out through my mouth I get refilled through my ears
-on this life that we call home
the years go fast and the days go so slow
-I like songs about drifters – books about the same.
They both seem to make me feel a little less insane.
-Its all nice on ice alright
and many more, –its what you get out of the song that makes it good, when you give it your own meaning, but these are a few or my favorite lines, most meaning fully, or lines that have came in handy .
I agree with the previous post. The Paper Thin Walls lyrics, doin the cockroach, and people as places as people are all brilliant. Some other favorites…
“The universe is shaped exactly like the earth if you go straight long enough you’ll end up where you were”
“I don’t know me and you don’t know you,
so we fit so good together ’cause I knew you like I knew myself.
We clung on like barnacles on a boat,
even though the ship sinks you know you can’t let go.”
“Well we moved to the left and moved to the right.
And sure as hell we stayed out almost every single night.
But if the party’s over, if the fun has to end,
could you do this for me my friend?
Would you just please, bury me with it?
PLEASE, BURY ME, WITH IT!”
“Who the hell made you the boss?
We placed our chips in all the right spots
But still lost
Any shithead who had ever walked
Could take the ship and do a much finer job
This fits like clothes made out of wasps
Aw, fuck it I guess I lost”
“And I claim I’m not excited with my life anymore,
So I blame this town, this job, these friends
The truth is it’s myself
And I’m trying to understand myself
and pinpoint where i am
When I finally get it figured out,
I’ve changed the whole damn plan”
Basically anything off of Lonesome Crowded West is genius as well. Isaac Brock is a rock god!
i randomly came across your blog. i love modest mouse. i love this post.
Ok, these are all amazing as we know. It just doesn’t get any better if you ask me. Check out Ugly Casanova’s song called “Hotcha Girls.” I love the part where he sings, “Smells like autumn, smells like leaves, you don’t know that you’ll rust & not belong so much then get left alone. Suck it up, take a ride, take a walk & don’t you know that old folks’ homes smell so much like my own?”
There’s another song with the same band of Issac Brock’s that goes, “We’re just a punchline to a joke that they won’t let us in on.” It’s just amazing. Go see for yourselves.
Ohyea! What song was that when he goes, “They gave me a receipt that said I didn’t buy nothing then they took half of that”? That one is one of my favorite songs upon many from him. I can’t even make up my mind.
Sometimes all I really want to feel is love
Sometimes I’m angry that I feel so angry
Sometimes my feelings get in the way
Of what I really feel I needed to say
I agree with Miranda- 100 %.
My favorite is-It’s been agreed the whole world stinks so no one’s taking showers anymore. Paper Thin Walls
I’ve got it all most- One of the most meaningful songs to me. The lyrics are epic, like most of all thier songs. But this one hits deep.
Bankrupt On Selling, Trailer Trash, Talking Shit About a Pretty Sunset… Also my favorites-
And I shout that you’re all fakes
And you should have seen the look on your face
And I guess that’s what it takes
When comparing your bellyaches
And it’s been a long time
Which agrees with this watch of mine
And I guess that I miss you, and I’m sorry if I dissed you.
Trailer Trash
We kiss on the mouth but still cough down our sleeves.
I think this was already said but just saying -Dramamine, another great song.
Isaac brock is an antichrist asshole that sold his soul and is sending all you to hell do research and see that god is real