October 12 - Marsh Witch Vision
OK, so the font for Marsh Witch Visions fucks severely, let's start there.
This song feels like a collection of the things that someone is doing while waiting to be alive. Starting with the small and mundane and then growing something. We're back to very traditional early Mountain Goats, both in terms of this being a guy with a guitar and a simple rhythm and in terms of this being a collection of songs around a particular life. In this case, that of Ozzy Osbourne.
OK, weird connections time. I've never been the biggest Sabbath guy, but my mum went to see them in 1971. Despite Ozzy being English I knew very little if any of his post-Sabbath work until I was working at a Harley store in the 2000s. Which means that almost all of my Ozzy / Sabbath connections are actually me talking about my wife. And I like talking about my wife.
Back in 2000, I came over to America for the first time since the early 80s and the first time as an adult. The airline lost my luggage and I was wearing my girlfriend's clothes. I bought T-shirts at a dollar store next to a gas station. And while I was over there I became the first Englishman that one of my girlfriend's friends had ever met. This friend was a huge Sabbath fan, and thought anything said in an English accent was amazing. So I threw on the full black country brummie (probably to the level of it being vaguely insulting to brummies) and she cackled as I intoned Ozzy's name. While I was over there, my girlfriend got a kitten. We got the kitten after he fell asleep on my knee. We named him Ozzy, and he was an absolute helion.
Anyway, it became clear to me quite quickly that living on the other side of the atlantic from which perosn and her helion of a cat wasn't going to work for me, so after finishing my English degree, and then doing a librarianship degree to make myself vaguely employable, I went over to the US, with the intention of seeing if I could find work there, and living with girlfriend and cat for 90 days on a tourist visa.
And during that first visit I asked her to marry me. She said yes.
And then, 24 years ago today, in a ceremony officiated by a professional wrestler, we promised to love and look after each other for the rest of our lives.
Ozzy passed away many years ago, but we're still here. 24 years in, going pretty good so far.