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in: The Sunset Tree songs, Come, Come to the Sunset Tree songs, Video, The Jordan Lake Sessions: Volumes 1 and 2 songs

Lion's Teeth

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Lion's Teeth
TheSunsetTreeFrontCover

Album

 The Sunset Tree

Released

 2005

Artist

the Mountain Goats

Length

3:25

Previous Track

Up the Wolves

Next Track

Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod

Lion's Teeth is the eighth song on the album The Sunset Tree. It also appears as the 15th song on the 2020 live album The Jordan Lake Sessions: Volumes 1 and 2.

Lyrics[]

The king of the jungle
Was asleep in his car
When your chances fall in your lap like that
You've gotta recognize them for what they really are

Nobody in this house
Wants to own up to the truth
I crawl in shotgun and reach into his mouth
And grab hold of one long sharp tooth

And hold on
For dear life
I hold on

Well of course he wakes up
His paw hits the horn
I am gonna regret
The day that I was born

And then Mom
Rushes out to the driveway
My sister too
Everyone's screaming
I am dreaming of you

I hold on
For dear life
I hold on

And my arms get sore
And my palms start to sweat
And the tears roll down my face
'Til my cheeks are hot and red and soaking wet

In come the cops
They blowtorch the doors
I start wailing
The lion roars

There's no good way to end this
Anyone can see
There's this great big you
And little old me

And we hold on
For dear life
We hold on
We hold on

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]

  • "Another new one. I think you're gon' like it. The next album ... I spent a long time trying to tell people that my songs weren't autobiographical, which they weren't, they were just stories, y'know? And then ... it doesn't matter who you try and tell 'I'm just tellin' stories,' if you're a guy with an acoustic guitar, they assume that you are spilling your guts towards some woman that you loved but didn't love you back. Which is really not my problem. My problem is more of like a video game slash cigarette slash heroin addiction. But with the last album, which was We Shall All Be Healed, I took some tentative steps towards telling true stories about when I was a teenager, and then for this next one, which is gonna be called The Sunset Tree, I am goin' balls-out and I'm talkin' about my family. Uh, my stepfather died last year. I'm sorry that he died because you're sorry that anybody died, but as far as stepfathers go, he was sort of the prototypical stepfather. So ... you know what I mean, so ... those of you that had that kind of divorce in your house will recognize the people in this song. It's called 'Lion's Teeth.'" –– 2004-10-19 - Village Tavern - Mt. Pleasant, SC
  • "It's a song about the sort of things you think about wishing you could do when you are utterly powerless and you're seventeen or sixteen and it's tough." -- 2005-10-31 - Knitting Factory - New York, NY
  • "This is a revenge fantasy. It's called 'Lion's Teeth.'" -- 2007-01-02 - Club Capitol - Perth, Australia
  • "This is a song about survival." -- 2007-11-03 - The Slowdown - Omaha, NE
  • "This is a hard song for John to play." -- Come, Come to the Sunset Tree LP

Things Referenced in this Song[]

  • The "long sharp tooth" may be a reference to the line "Love is like the lion's tooth" from "Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks At The Dancers", a WB Yeats poem about a destructive, passionate relationship.

Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]

Videos of this Song[]



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