The Lonesome Crowded West

Modest Mouse’s 1997 concept album The Lonesome Crowded West is a scattered shotgun blast spraying bullets of vitriol and desperation across the suburban landscape of the Northwest. Central to the album is the idea of getting in your car and fleeing unhappiness, which the West allows you to do (also central is the correlation between distance and loneliness). I’ve learned the hard way (many times) that happiness doesn’t go away by driving across state and then across the border into another.

This is the region I grew up in and the place I’ve lived my whole life. It’s a place where how long you’ve been here matters. It’s a place where where you come from especially matters. But my parents were from California, I grew up in Boise, and went to a private Catholic school - places often despised in rural Idaho. I’ve spent the better part of my life tiptoeing around where I’m from. And then now when some asks “Are you from here?” I can’t seem to answer either yes or no.

And yet, I’ll never leave and the place for all its mythology, mirages, the way it can mind fuck you, the pain and suffering inherent in its expanses, it’s inequality, tragedy, transience, paradoxes, diversity, beauty, and stories, never ceases to keep me interested.

*All lyrics following on this page by Modest Mouse

Polar opposites don’t push away, it’s the same

On the weekends as the rest of the days

And I know I should go, but I’ll probably stay

And that’s all you can do about some things

Manzanar National Historic Site, California

In this place that I call home
My brain's the cliff, and my heart's the bitter buffalo

Out of gas, out of road

Out of car, I don’t know how I’m going to go

And I had a drink the other day

Opinions were like kittens, I was giving them away

I had a drink the other day

I had a lot to say

And I said

You will come down soon too

Soon the chain reaction started in the parking lot
Waiting to bleed onto the big streets
That bleed out onto the highways
And off to others cities built to store and sell these plastic rocks
Well, aren't you feeling real dirty sitting in the parking lot?

Well, Jesus Christ was an only child
He went down to the river, and he drank and smiled
And his dad was oh, so mad
Should have insured that planet before it crashed

Well, Cowboy Dan's a major player in the cowboy scene
He goes to the reservation, drinks and gets mean
And he's gonna start a war, he's gonna start a war
And he hops in his pickup, puts his pedal to the floor
And says, "I got mine, but I want more"

Because Cowboy Dan's a major player in the cowboy scene
He goes to the reservation, drinks and gets mean
He goes to the desert, fires his rifle in the sky
And says, "God, if I have to die, you will have to die

Because Cowboy Dan's a major player in the cowboy scene
He didn't move to the city, the city moved to me
And I want out desperately

This trucker’s atlas roads the ways
The freeways and highways don't know
The buzz from the bird on my dash
Road locomotive phone

I don't feel and I feel great
I sold my atlas by the freight stairs
I do lines and I crossed roads
I crossed the lines of all the great state roads

I'm going up, going over to Montana
You got yourself a trucker's atlas
You knew you were all hot
Well maybe you'll go and blow a gasket

Start at the northwest corner
Go down through California
Beeline you might drive three days
Three nights to the tip of Florida

Oh do you speak the lingo?
Oh, oh no
Oh do you speak the lingo?
No no
How far does your road go?
Oh no, you don't know?

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 belly aches

And it's been a long time
Which agrees with this watch of mine
And I know that I miss you
And I'm sorry if I dissed you

The Lonesome Crowded West

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