Mountain Goats appreciation month #5

"International Small Arms Traffic Blues" is another "alpha cycle" song from the "Tallahassee" album dealing with the dysfunctional couple that is also featured in "No Children". It's a short sonnet-like love poem that starts darkly, ominously with bad things about to happen.
The format and style reminds me of Shakespeare. Compare the following to the song's lyrics below:
"My love is as a fever, longing still,
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please."

As it's made clear in the lyrics, the relationship is in a delicate state and things are about to get much worse. The funny metaphors are, as always, deadly serious and bittersweet. Nevertheless, the songs ends with the line "The way I feel about you baby can't explain it, You got the best of my love". Go figure. As Imogen Heap sings: "there’s beauty in breakdown".


International Small Arms Traffic Blues


My love is like a powder keg
My love is like a powder keg in the corner of an empty warehouse
Somewhere just outside of town
About to burn down

My love is like a Cuban plane
My love is like a Cuban plane flying from Havana
Up the Florida coast to the 'Glades
Soviet made

Our love is like the border between Greece and Albania
Our love is like the border between Greece and Albania
Trucks loaded down with weapons
Crossing over every night
Moon yellow and bright
There is a shortage in the blood supply
But there is no shortage of blood
The way I feel about you baby can't explain it
You got the best of my love