The Mountain Goats – Damn These Vampires

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Brave young cowboys
Of the near north side
Mount those bridge rails
Ride all night
Scream when captured
Arch your back
Let this whole town hear
Your knuckles crack

Sapphire Trans-Am
High beams in vain
Drive wild broncos
Down the plain
Push up to the corner
Where the turbines hiss
Someday we won't
Remember this

Crawl 'til dawn
On my hands and knees
God damn these vampires
For what they've done to me
Tie those horses
To the post outside
And let those glass doors
Open wide
And in their surface
See two young, savage things
Barely worth
Remembering

Feast like pagans
Never get enough
Sleep like dead men
Wake up like dead men
And when the sun comes
Try not to hate the light
Someday we'll try
To walk upright

Crawl 'til dawn
On my hands and knees
God damn these bite marks
Deep in my arteries
Crawl 'til dawn
On my hands and knees
God damn these vampires
For what they've done to me

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Lyrics submitted by concreteblues

Track duration: 03:24


Damn These Vampires song meanings
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17 Comments

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  • +2
    General Comment:Definitely a symbolic song, but I'd just like to say that I also love the story at its face value. Brave young cowboys, looking for the vampires who hurt them, most likely having killed someone close to them, and finally the find where they're hiding, opening the door to find "two young, savage things barely worth remembering", and then it switches perspective, and you see that the vampires hate living this way, and they're saying the same thing as the cowboys, "God damn these vampires for what they've done to me."
    Flag EyePatchPeteon October 11, 2012   Link
  • +1
    General Comment:And misleading Friends can also fit into this but only as the people who helped feed his addiction
    Flag darcyfrodon July 15, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:This song is about his Heroin addiction. The vampires is a metaphor for the users and sellers surrounding him during his addiction sucking the life out of him. He then refers to the Bite marks being the trace marks from injections.

    John writes about past experiences always pretty much. So he has many songs referencing to his drug addiction as well as his abusive stepfather.
    Flag darcyfrodon July 15, 2012   Link
    • 1 Reply
  • 0
    General Comment:I think this song is about friends.And how sometimes you have this freind you thought she or him was the best thing in the world, but when you reallly get in to what they do its not really what a good friend will do. When he says 'Someday we won't Remember this' I think it mean that does frinds will someday go away and you will hardly remember them. Also when he sings "Feast like pagans,Never get enough,Sleep like dead men, Wake up like dead men, And when the sun comes,Try not to hate the light" It reminds me of my not so-good frinds and how they were allway say that you are crazy because you try to enjoy everything there is in life.
    This is just my opinion.
    Flag felicie95on November 30, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:i read somewhere that the album is supposedly about a fictional tarot deck. i wonder what card this song is supposed to represent.
    Flag StrayDogFreedom12on October 13, 2011   Link
    • 1 Reply
  • 0
    General Comment:I understand that vampires thing more like a metaphor. For me it´s about meeting somebody who changed your life forever, had a bad infuence at you (vampires), teaching you things you shouldn´t know, maybe introduce you to drugs and alcohol, nightlife (crawl til dawn). It could be some exact person, or fame, or just society these days. And the author kinda wishes he could go back in time and not become what he became but it´s too late, he was "infected". But he tries to live with all the things he have done,remembering who he was before and maybe one day eventually redeem himself
    (And when the sun comes
    Try not to hate the light
    Someday we'll try
    To walk upright).
    Flag bnickaon September 12, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Just an incredible song. Plain and simple. My own projections here but in a struggle, coming to your wits end trying to cope with the new reality that is your today.
    Flag CommanderVenuson August 10, 2011   Link
  • 0
    My Interpretation:I agree with the comment about heroin or the idea of drugs in general. I feel that vampires can represent both drugs, users and sellers. I feel that within the second verse, the narrator is giving into his natural urges and becoming a vampire himself. Also, through lines like one day we'll learn to walk up right and god damn these vampires, we see that he doesn't like what he's becoming but its deep in his arteries and one day it'll be better, but not today. Today, he's just another addict "barely worth remembering."
    Flag ehsymphony21on July 01, 2011   Link
  • +2
    General Comment:I saw the Mountain Goats in Leeds last night, and before this song John explained it with something along the lines of the following; 'You have friends and you think that they're the greatest people in the world, but there comes a time when you realise, all at once or it can come upon you gradually, that your friends aren't the greatest people in the world but they're actually parasites sucking the blood from you - not because they need the blood but just for their own entertainment. And then you have like one friend on your shoulder saying you're just being neurotic, your friends are great, and yourself in the middle saying 'no they're not, look at the facts''.
    Flag matthiscoon May 29, 2011   Link
  • 0
    My Interpretation:maybe I'm just projecting (haha)... but... I think it's a love song about a romance with an expiry date.
    Flag thesovietonionon May 26, 2011   Link

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