What does it mean to be comfortable? Does comfort stem from a specific setting or is it a state of mind? Is it external or internal? I think many would argue the latter because it endorses a person’s agency, i.e. one can become comfortable anywhere if they set their mind to it; however, I think it’s a continuum as opposed to the binary scenario that the question presupposes. A positive state of mind can influence you to think positively about a location and vice versa. The opposite is also true: a negative state of mind can influence your perception of a location that isn’t inherently bad and vice versa. But I would say on balance that comfort is an overrated luxury that is undoubtedly essential. Comfort engenders apathy and indifference, but only when someone is bathing in comfort can they really see its detrimental qualities. We need to be comfortable to recognize that it’s a lie.

“Teeth Like God’s Shoeshine,” and really all of Lonesome Crowded West, concerns many, many things, but my favorite aspect is the idea of critiquing comfort as a state of mind in relation to the loss of innate identity in the American West. “TLGS” routinely draws from archetypal images of the West—such as “a rattle snake up in Buffalo, Montana,” “ghost towns,” “the old sheriff,”—but also draws comparisons to suburbia as well, evidenced by repeated mentions of Orange Julius’ and malls, in order to make the song both regionally specific and universal. “The West” is such a mythic concept in American history—a land of opportunity, open ranges, freedom from urban oppression, etc.—that it has become ingrained in regional and national identities, but a widespread consumerist mentality has rid the West of its geographical purity in favor of strip malls and fast food chains. Much of MM’s early work centers on that crippling fear, but it bleeds into every song on LCW.

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This is probably a good opportunity to talk about my feelings on, and bias towards, LCW. LCW is my favorite Modest Mouse album by a long shot and I would argue their best album overall. It’s a perfect distillation of the different shades of their sound and its raw, unencumbered style makes it a classic indie rock album that doesn’t sound the least bit dated (not that that’s the worst thing in the world). LCW has the most cohesive vision, as I’ve generally outlined above, but isn’t afraid to embrace extreme tonal shifts as a part of that vision. The album has a beating heart but has a rough edge that achieves the tricky balance of incorporating and alienating listeners. To me, LCW is MM’s peak and I’m partial to its frank, homespun sound over anything else in their catalogue (although, in the interest of full disclosure, MM has never been better than the one-two, 30-song punch of LCW and Moon & Antarctica, but I’ll discuss that later).

Part of the reason why I love LCW so much is because Isaac Brock has never been better lyrically. MM has always been consistent in the quality and specificity of their lyrics and the mini-narratives they spin, but unlike on later albums, LCW is a little less direct in its execution. Brock expresses wise, ambiguous beliefs in obscure language that includes visually striking metaphors, character studies, and living, breathing images that give the listener a sense of time and place. LCW’s lyrics seep into the mind and encourage rumination and reflection, and the truths it attempts to presents are a little less easy to ascertain but all the more worthwhile.

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Right off the bat, “TLGS” discusses the nature of being trapped not in a specific place, but in life altogether (“From the top of the ocean, yeah/From the bottom of the sky, goddamn/Well I get claustrophobic, I can/You know that I can.”). However, it doesn’t lament this fact, but meditates on it allowing it to inform the rest of the song rather than overwhelm it. “TLGS” isn’t about anything really; it consists of an assortment of moments and images but doesn’t feel the need to narrativize them. There’s the “man with teeth like God’s shoeshine” who is presented as an omniscient, pervasive figure, the Orange Julius stands and the subsequent comparison between consumers and the thick syrup both of which are “standing in line,” the malls that “are soon to be ghost towns,” the rattle snake biting the leg of the old sheriff. It all paints a picture of restrained normalcy, a routine that doesn’t serve anything but the comfort of having a routine.

Brock adds bits of commentary throughout “TLGS”—not the least of which are the loud-quiet-loud tone undoubtedly influenced by the Pixies—that at the very least suggest a sarcastic, bitter perspective to this normalcy clearly driven by capitalist desire and a fear of a structureless environment. “If you could compact your conscience…if you could bottle and sell it…” the narrator asks himself as he questions everything in front of him. Brock draws sharp contrasts between those who give a shit and “go to the family doctor” to alleviate their short-term troubles and those who give a shit but exist solely on the corners because they see the fallacies within. He predicates this on the idea that there’s a “sense of happiness that comes from hurting deep down inside,” which illustrates the standard blissful ignorance vs. unhappy awareness argument beautifully.

It comes back to this idea of comfort as a means of happiness. There’s no doubt that the characters in “TLGS” who engorge on patented fruit smoothies at the mall or buy friends at the grocery store or even rely on the existence of the man with sparkly, shimmering teeth are happy in the traditional sense, but Brock posits that their happiness is rooted in their unwillingness to reflect on the assumptions they have bought into. The place they live in brings them happiness because it fulfills needs and doesn’t force anyone to question what they know to be true. MM’s whole modus operandi is to question assumptions, not as an end to itself but as a beginning. I never get the sense from “TLGS” that a tortured acceptance of the way things are is the only path, but acknowledging that things aren’t great is the first step to a better existence. Do you need a lot of what you got to survive?