After a six-part buildup ranking the entire Modest Mouse discography, we're at the top! These aren't just the best Modest Mouse songs, they are some of the best indie rock songs ever. The band has released a ton of unparalleled songs in their long fruitful career. This is the best of the best.
It's been a blast revisiting these songs with you all. I know I'll be listening to a lot more Modest Mouse than usual for the next few weeks. I hope you've enjoyed it too. Here's the final part of the Modest Mouse series:
(20) People as Places as People (We Were Dead)
This song sounds deep as hell. It feels like taking a hit of a drug to listen to it, the bass and guitar are laying out some magic chords that are not of this earth, all panning around and bending up and down. It’s a wonderful track, made even better by some neat lyrics.
Always asking a question
And I don't want to know
Like the wind across strings
That had finally let go
And the people you loved
But you didn't quite know
(19) The Stars Are Projectors (Moon & Antarctica)
Trippy concept for this song - the stars projecting our lives onto the planet. That space-age philosophy shows up in the production, which involves a lot of side-to-side panning and shifts from full to sparse arrangement.
The cool thing about Modest Mouse is that they can easily handle writing an 8+ minute song without getting boring. They’ve got a remarkable ability to hold back, to bring in new hooks and ideas at just the right times. That feature is in full effect on The Stars Are Projectors.
Everyone wants a double feature
They want to be their own damn teacher, and how
The stars are projectors, yeah
Projecting our lives down to this planet earth
(18) Wild Packs of Family Dogs (Moon & Antarctica)
A clunky, catchy narrative detailing Isaac’s family slowly fraying away from the assaults of the wild pack of family dogs. This track features some accordion, wood block, and acoustic guitar to back up Isaac’s vocal - and I just love it. I think many fans would argue with me about having this song at #18, but it’s my list, I’m going to do it my way.
And right after I die
The dogs start floating up towards the glowing sky
Now they'll receive their rewards
(17) Broke (Building Nothing)
The band has never sounded so thin yet full, if that makes sense. It’s lo-fi as hell but the vocals hit the upper frequencies while the bass fills up the lower half. Drums are poking through the whole time, making for a lovely mix that isn’t high-fi. This is a sound that didn’t exist past the early 2000’s for some reason.
Broke a promise cause my car broke down
Such a classic excuse it should be bronze by now
Broke up, and I'm relieved somehow
It's the end of the discussions that just go round and round
And round, and round, and round, and round
(16) What People are Made Of (Moon & Antarctica)
Modest Mouse structures their albums with great care. It’s no accident that What People Are Made Of, with it’s harsh production and rapid-fire song structure, concludes their softest album. After wandering through the dreary lake of space-age depression, the band rages into a frenzy to get your blood pumping. The final sound is Isaac’s blood-curdling scream distorted into white noise by the compressor.
Way in back of the room, there sits a cage
Inside it’s a clock that you can win
If you can guess its age
Which you never can do
Because the time it constantly changes
(15) Heart Cooks Brain (Lonesome Crowded West)
Only Isaac Brock can pull this off. His lyrics here are an extended metaphor that his heart is a bed of hot coals, his brain is a hamburger, and it’s getting fried up. A bizarre concept that comes across absolutely beautiful, conveying the battle between mind and heart via vivid, concise poetry. The power of music is to connect with people in a way that regular talk can’t do - and this song is a prime example.
On the way to god don't know
My brain's the burger and my heart's the coal
I'm trying to get my head clear
I push things out through my mouth
I get refilled through my ears
(14) Parting of the Sensory (We Were Dead)
Modest Mouse couldn’t pull this off earlier in their career. For all the compositional and productional deftness shown on their earlier work, they were working with much simpler musical ideas back then. Here, each section is meticulously composed, Isaac’s musical and lyric themes develop in subtle ways, yet the song works on a completely emotional level, it’s thrilling to just listen and not think. The album’s climax, in my opinion, is the outro of this song - “Someday you will die and somebody’s gonna steal your carbon.”
There's no work in walking and it fueled the talk
I would grab my shoes and then away I'd walk
Through all the stubborn beauty I'd start at the dawn
Until the sun had fully stopped
(13) Convenient Parking (Lonesome Crowded West)
We use technology for convenience. Where we could have trees, forests, nature trails, we put Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, and endless parking lots. You don’t think about it much, but if you ever commit a month to not spending any extra money - just buy groceries and toilet paper for a month, basically - and you’ll start to see the absurdity of it all. “Convenient Parking” is a great depiction of this whole concept.
Well, aren't you feeling real dirty
Sitting in the parking lot
Waiting to bleed onto the big streets
That bleed out onto the highways and
Off to other cities built to store and
Sell these rocks
(12) Styrofoam Boots/It's All Nice (Lonesome Crowded West)
Isaac fulfills a common DIY recording trope here: These sharp, reverberant vocals are the sound of a bathroom recording booth. Bathrooms are great for vocals when you don’t have access to a studio - and in its most extreme form, you get this sound. Isaac’s hitting another classic subject of young adult angst on this one - religion - and it’s a clever, hilarious, relatable view on the subject. When the band kicks in for the second half of the track, you’re on a one way train to musical bliss - and then, just like that, the album is done and you are on your own.
He says looking at something else
But directing everything to me
"Every time anyone gets on their knees to pray
Well, it makes my telephone ring
(11) Tiny Cities Made of Ashes (Moon & Antarctica)
I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t put this song anywhere near #11 nowadays. It hasn’t aged as well as I’d hope. Nonetheless - it’s a bizarre, creative track where Isaac does his most straight-up rapping out of any MM song, and the whole thing is dorky and weird in the way that Talking Heads’s Speaking In Tongues is - it works, but you can’t put your finger on how. Maybe the catchy rock-tinged chorus is what lands the whole thing on solid ground.
I'm wearing myself a t-shirt
That says, "The world is my ashtray"
Our hearts pump dust
And our hair's all gray
(10) Polar Opposites (Lonesome, Crowded West)
The joyously catchy and the sad have never merged together as firmly as on this track. The hook is huge, Isaac filling the sound with several layered tracks all on the same notes, and the band kicking into full major key motion - yet he’s singing about getting drunk and sleeping all day. Avoiding the shit you have to deal with, just staying inebriated enough to lay in bed and let it fall apart. But it’s so catchy and warm sounding.
Maybe that’s the point - when you are in the middle of the drunken binge, there’s that part where the shit hasn’t hit the fan yet, and it really does feel like bliss. This song captures that juxtaposition nicely.
I'm trying, I'm trying to drink away the part of the day
That I cannot sleep away
I'm trying, I'm trying to drink away the part of the day
That I cannot sleep away
(9) Jesus Christ Was an Only Child (Lonesome Crowded West)
This is a ferociously original track even decades later. Acoustic guitar, wandering violin, octave-layered lead vocal, and a strange lo-fi vocal sound in the background are all you hear for two and a half minutes, then it’s over. It sounds simultaneously awkward, unrehearsed, and confused - but also tight, composed, and proper. Modest Mouse strikes again with a song that I still can’t explain, even hundreds of listens into it.
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 killed that little fucker
Before he even had
(8) Exit Does Not Exist (Long Drive)
DAT DRUM GROOVE. It’s the tightest, fattest, most amazing thing Jeremiah Green ever put to tape. The Fugazi-esque guitars that follow help to solidify the beat, and then Isaac’s innovative vocal production brings out a ludicrous arrangement of leads and semi-wheezing sounds, but much less painful than his attempts at this sound on the previous album. From there the song just rips, so many riffs and jams. This is an unusual choice for the top 10, but I’ll stand by it any day.
I hear voices insinuating
Feeds me lyrics to this song that I am saying
Sunlight 7:20 PM, early September
Standing looking at a photograph
That you do not remember being taken
You look out of breath, and me like I am faking
As a matter of fact I don't recall this photo being taken
You don't even actually exist so I just started shaking
(7) Lounge (Closing Time) (Lonesome Crowded West)
Does the band actually land on a chord anywhere in this song? Isaac is rapping, the bass is sliding around, the guitar is in full funk mode but never landing somewhere I could call the root note. The energy is palpable, the band is at the lounge, it’s late, shit is going to go down. They’re in a weird tonal area here, unlike most of their songs. It’s a cool vibe, and it flows to a bunch of interesting ideas through the seven-minute runtime.
And everybody was feeling fine
She was talking with syllable lisp
And everybody she knew was going to get the twist
And they all went down and did the porcupine
(6) Lives (Moon & Antarctica)
Lives is an honest meditation on the strangeness of life, the desire to capture as much experience as you can in your single chance to experience it before you die. Isaac’s vocal performance is helped along by a lush string and acoustic guitar arrangement, with almost no drumming to speak of.
It's hard to remember, it's hard to remember
We're alive for the first time
It's hard to remember we’re alive for the last time
It's hard to remember, it's hard to remember
To live before you die
(5) Trailer Trash (Lonesome Crowded West)
If you read the lyrics to this song, you’d think it was trash. “short love with a long divorce” is clever, but most of it reads as a bit simple, a bit too sing-song. When you hear it in context of the song - the sweetness of the upper-octave bass, the beauty of the vocal melody and performance - you realize that it is perfect. This is a gorgeous, meaningful, powerful song.
Eating snowflakes with plastic forks
And a paper plate of course, you think of everything
Short love with a long divorce
And a couple of kids, of course
They don't mean anything
(4) Cowboy Dan (Lonesome Crowded West)
Cruise on the highway with both windows open. If legal in your state, have several passengers drinking beers - driver stays sober. Blast this song into the summer heat as long as you can tolerate. It’s a badass track that no other band could come close to pulling off.
Cowboy Dan's a major player in the cowboy scene
He goes to the reservation, drinks and gets mean
He drove the desert, fired his rifle in the sky
And says, "God, if I have to die, you will have to die"
(3) Doin' The Cockroach (Lonesome Crowded West)
The most pixies-influenced of any Modest Mouse song. It may as well Frank Black singing this one, except for Isaac’s more directly political lyrics, his more subtle transition from sing to scream, and the mild twang. OK, it’s not that similar - and it’s packed with edge, it’s nasty at the same time as it is profound. The chorus is energetic and heavy, and I love the flow of the part that happens around a minute and a half in.
I was in heaven
I was in hell
Believe in neither
But fear them as well
(2) Life Like Weeds (Moon & Antarctica)
The juxtaposition of the funk-strummed guitar with the somber, intimate lyricism of the vocals is an unusual combo within Modest Mouse’s discography. The entire song carries that contrast, with an energy and a sadness to the whole thing. The production takes advantage of MM’s tonal dexterity, there is so much going on in the guitar and vocal arrangements. It’s a beautiful song that deserves to sit at #2.
In this life like weeds, you're the dirt I’ll breath
In this life like weeds, you're a rock to me
All this talking all the time and the air fills up, up, up
Until there's nothing left to breathe
(1) Teeth Like God's Shoeshine (Lonesome Crowded West)
This was the first Modest Mouse song I ever heard. At age 15, on a recommendation from an internet chatroom friend, I gave it a try. The screaming, the harsh guitar tri-tones, the wild drumming was all so much. It hit hard and without remorse, a terrifying combination of sounds that I could never previously imagine. I turned it off after 30 seconds.
All these years later, there is no question that Teeth Like God’s Shoeshine is the ultimate Modest Mouse song. It cycles twice through three sections, each with its own style and memorable hooks. The whole thing is unlike any song by any other band, it’s seven minutes long and easily carries the length.
If you listen to nothing else - listen to this song.
And he said
"I am not allowed much danger
Well, keep in mind you're an old friend, stranger
You'll burn me in effigy
And I'll burn you in effigy"
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