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Southwood Plantation Road
C4ub4

Album

Tallahassee

Released

2002

Artist

the Mountain Goats

Length

2:46

Previous track

"First Few Desperate Hours"

Next Track

"Game Shows Touch Our Lives"

Southwood Plantation Road is the third song on the album Tallahassee. It also appears as the 23rd song on the 2020 live album The Jordan Lake Sessions: Volumes 1 and 2. It was performed by Mooner in Tallahassee Turns Ten.

Lyrics[]

I've got you
You've got whatever's left of me to get
Our conversations are like minefields
No one's found a safe way through one yet
I spend a lot of money
I buy you white gold
We raise up a little roof
Against the cold
On Southwood Plantation Road
Where at night the stars blow like milk across the sky
Where the high wires drop
Where the fat crows fly

All night long you giggle and scream
Your brown eyes deeper than a dream
I am not going to lose you
We are going to stay married
In this house like a Louisiana graveyard
Where nothing stays buried
On Southwood Plantation Road
Where the dead will walk again
Put on their Sunday best
And mingle with unsuspecting Christian men
La la la la la

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]

  • “This song is about a house in southern Florida where a lot of bad things happen because of the two people who are making the bad things happen to each other. They really do love each other but they’re not really entirely clear [on] how to express that. So, they try to kill each other.” - 2003-07-02 - The Guinguette Pirate - Paris, France
  • "This is a song about how sometimes people who had positive feelings for one another, who express those positive feelings in a public ceremony attended by their friends and relatives, with food and delicious cake which they enjoyed, sometimes they take Communion if they're Catholic, but they don't have to be Catholic. The present people are, but they didn't have Communion at their wedding because they hadn't been to church for a while. Because they don't have enough vodka in the church. But it's a song about how sometimes people who have done those things come to feel differently about one another. And when they look within themselves to experience and evaluate those feelings, they find that the feelings have become raging maelstroms of incandescent anger and self-loathing. And they look at one another and they say, 'Well, let's have sex then, if there's nothing else.' And agree upon this, and make rather a lot of noise. It is a dance number." -- 2006-09-16 - The Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL
  • "This is a song that takes place about a day's drive from here, and it involves a couple of people who should have just listened to what their friends and family said. Had to follow the dictates of their hearts. God bless and keep them. It was terrible that they chose to follow the dictates of their hearts." -- 2011-04-08 - Cat's Cradle - Carrboro, NC

Things Referenced in this Song[]

Darnielle mentioned that he picked this song name by looking at a map of Tallahassee and choosing a street with a good name for a song.

Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]

Videos of this Song[]




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