Like a Canadian looking for any opportunity to point out an actor or musician is Canadian, any Portland-based Mountain Goats obsessive will leap at the chance to tell you just how much the Rose City comes up in the lyrics of singer-songwriter John Darnielle. Enough to make Elliott Smith’s references look sparse by comparison. 

The influence of location on Darnielle’s music can’t be overstated; he’s written whole albums about Southern California, West Texas, and Northern Florida, along with 50+ “Going to…” songs about places all across the globe. So, what makes Portland so damn special?

Darnielle’s brief time (nine months, by his estimation) in the mid-’80s in North Portland as a post-high school adolescent was, for lack of a better word, dark—many of his Portland songs depict moments spent knocking on death’s door, due to hard drug use, which he had been sent to Portland to overcome. Here, he lived, worked, partied, and suffered among a close cohort of friends, many of whom have long since passed away from similar struggles. Darnielle's time here left a mark, enough of one that he’s written a truly bonkers amount of songs about his time spent in the proverbial shadow of the Western Hills.

On December 8 and 9, the Mountain Goats play Revolution Hall in support of Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan, the group’s 23rd record. If you’re not already a fan, that number might scare you. But there’s no need to fear; we’ve put together a handy guide to the Rip City we get to experience through Darnielle’s lyrics. We promise, it’ll be way more fun than listening to someone wax poetic about “Old Portland” on the bus.

In the years that followed Darnielle’s Portland period, he moved to California and began writing poetry that would morph into the earliest, most primitive Mountain Goats songs. He played them live for anybody who’d listen, each show opening with the same greeting that he still uses, whether he’s alone or with his band: “Hi, we’re the Mountain Goats,” releasing the songs in the form of small-batch cassettes with handmade artwork—think Taboo IV: The Homecoming and Yam, the King of Crops—each song infested with the tape hiss of the Panasonic RX-FT500 boombox he recorded on. 

Across 30 years and two semi-major label changes (4AD, then Merge, based out of his forever home in Durham, NC), the makeup of the Mountain Goats has changed considerably. Now, the “we”  in “We’re the Mountain Goats” includes the likes of guitarist-saxophonist Matt Douglas and Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster. 

The band’s core has remained the same, anchored by Darnielle’s often cryptic, often conversational, always empathetic songwriting, with topics as varied as divorce, vampires, goth music, pro wrestling, theology, Ozzy Osbourne, and everything in between. Portland may be a Mountain Goats lyrical obsession, but it is far from the only one. But fuck theology, we’re here to talk about Portland, so let’s do that.

"Running Away With What Freud Said"

Though “Running Away With What Freud Said” doesn’t explicitly namecheck any locations in Portland, it has the distinction of being among the very first (if not the first) Mountain Goats songs ever written. It’s also one of the worst-sounding Mountain Goats songs, as it was recorded before Darnielle mastered the art of boombox production. Despite that, the picture he paints is full of hope: leaving your house after days shut inside your apartment, riding the bus downtown, and seeing the cold world begin to come alive again in the flowerbeds along your route. Here in 2025, in the darkness of near-winter, this one’s a great reminder that you, too, can weather the darkness and live to see warmer days.

“Standard Bitter Love Song #8”

Is there a better place to feel some romantic angst than Lloyd Center Mall? Likely not. Many of the Portland-centric Mountain Goats songs are pretty bleak, but the beautifully named “Standard Bitter Love Song #8” finds Darnielle spying on his former lover and her new boyfriend at the famed mall, giving us this remarkable couplet: “He took your hand there in the skating rink / God will give him blood to drink.” Yowza!

“You’re in Maya”

Sure, the bulk of unreleased-gem “You’re in Maya” takes place in Ireland. But have a listen to the live recording below, recorded at the Wonder Ballroom in 2008, and you can hear Darnielle shout out the address of his old apartment building, roughly a mile away, “a block away from the Willamette.”

“We Shall All Be Healed (AKA: Rose Quarter Drifting”

The apartment building he names in “You’re In Maya” returns to us in the absolute bruiser, unreleased title track of the Goats’ eighth album, We Shall All Be Healed. The record is full of direct references to California, though “We Shall All Be Healed” holds the key to everything.

Here, Darnielle revisits a singular incident that he’s returned to many times ( see “Genesis 3:23,” “Done Bleeding”). Now a grown adult and a survivor of the horrors of addiction, he slips into the apartment building and leaves a mark on his old door, “As an empty warning sign from one who's gone before, but isn't here anymore.” If you’ve dodged your own oblivion, hearing him excavate the space he left behind is going to hit you like a ton of bricks.

“Wizard Buys a Hat”

In 2023, the Mountain Goats played a set at Pioneer Courthouse Square, which included a spirited rendition of “Wizard Buys a Hat.” The occasion was an auspicious one: Not only was this easily the largest Mountain Goats show in our city’s history, but it took place on the “red steps” he smoked a cigarette on after he “shuffled up Sixth Street in the rain” to buy the titular hat from the Meier & Frank that once sat in the building now housing the Nines. 

"Lakeside View Apartments Suite"

In 2017, at a concert in Philadelphia, Darnielle introduced this Transcendental Youth heartbreaker as such: "This is a song that takes place on the north side of Portland, Oregon, in a neighborhood that looks much as it did in the '80s, still. They haven't gotten to it yet. God bless everybody there." Where are the mythical Lakeside View Apartments? Your guess is as good as mine, but Darnielle doesn’t exactly make it sound like a treat.

“Steal Smoked Fish” b/w “In the Shadow of the Western Hills”

A pair of B-sides from the Transcendental Youth era, neither of which mince words when it comes to location. “Across the Burnside Bridge, before anyone shot their movies there,” Darnielle sings on “Steal Smoked Fish,” namechecking Plaid Pantry (the one at NE 16th and Broadway, if you’re curious) and the Broadway Bridge as he pays tribute to the friends he lost to the same demons he narrowly escaped. Be careful with “Steal Smoked Fish”—if you listen in the wrong headspace, it is guaranteed to rip your heart out.

On the flipside of the single, we have “In the Shadow of the Western Hills,” a song that doesn’t call out the city, but for those who’ve heard Art Alexakis sing “a new house way up in the West Hills” on Everclear’s “I Will Buy You a New Life” will be familiar with the area. This song transports us back in time to the world Darnielle sings about in “Steal Smoked Fish,” obliquely comparing himself to a feral cat, trying to find the source of his own anguish. Like tracing a river back to its source on a map. It doesn’t pack the emotional punch of its A-side, but in tandem, the pair are devastating.

"Wear Black" / "Unicorn Tolerance"

Why don’t we close out with a couple of Mountain Goats songs that might make you feel happy for a change? While the “No comp’ed vocals, no pitch correction, no guitars” approach to the band’s 17th album, Goths, has made it one of the most polarizing of Darnielle’s catalog, it’s certainly got some fun ones. “Wear Black” and “Unicorn Tolerance” don’t directly reference the city, but Darnielle hasn't exactly kept it secret during live shows on the Goths tour that these are songs about his days in Portland. 

Extra Credit:

Even this playlist of all of these songs, and more, is non-exhaustive! The mega-nerds will be quick to tell you that We Shall All Be Healed’s “Palmcorder Yajna” and All Eternals Deck’s opener "Damn These Vampires" are set in Portland, and that "Birth of Serpents" namechecks Oregon. Transcendental Youth’s "White Cedar" finds Darnielle “standing at a bus stop on NE 33rd,” possibly near the old Gordon’s Fireplace Shop building. Mega-deep-cut "Moth and Worm" references Crater Lake, and "Third Snow Song" from the Philyra EP sees the singer braving the ice to take “the short walk down to the Broadway bridge.”

It never ends. Even "Cleaning Crew" from the band’s last album, 2023’s Jenny From Thebes, finds the Mountain Goats telling us: “If you find yourself in Portland, ask about me.” Take his advice, but be careful who you ask; you might get far more than you ever bargained for.