Plague of Locusts
Recorded March 1999
Release history
Credits
- Written by Harvey Danger, © But Mom I Love Music (ASCAP)/Famous Music
- Recorded by John Goodmanson at Bearsville, John & Stu’s, and Bear Creek
- Mixed by John Goodmanson at the Village Recorder
- Aaron: bass
- Jeff: guitars, organ
- Sean: lead and backing vocals
- Evan: drums
- Ben Gibbard, Ken Stringfellow, Anne Marie Ruljancich: backing vocals
- David Ritt: trombones
- Neal Bolter: french horn
- Charles Butler: trumpet, piccolo trumpet
- Geoffrey Bergler: trumpet
- Horns arr. by Jeff
Lyrics
It’s in Revelations 1-22:
scorpions and hydrae breathing fire at you
so mark your foreheads
Seven golden lampstands to light the fury from the sky
Yeah, I will kill your children
I know your works and labor, they can’t save you
Throats are parched with smoke from golden censer
Rivers run with blood, wormwood to quench you
from being to nothingness
Second woe is past—look out! look out! Third one’s coming up
Yeah, seal up the righteous and screw the wicked over
It’s all over
Its a plague of locusts!
Hallelujah, it’s raining frogs!
It’s a boulder hailstorm! Ha-ha-ha!
It’s the wrath of—
Goddamn
The names are in the book—not yours!
Four horsemen ride the range
Hark! The herald angel’s carnage!
P-p-p-pestilence and bloodshed wash away all your mistakes
Before they cast your wretched flesh into the fiery lake
And it’s coming!
And it’s a plague of locusts!
It’s a plague of locusts!
It’s a plague of locusts!
It’s the wrath of—
Quotes
Sean: The ultimate so close, yet so far song in our catalogue; all lyrics straight from the Bible—where Christians take their cues to celebrate the suffering of non-believers—(except, "hallelujah, it's raining frogs," a reference to Jennifer Holiday, and "from being to nothingness," after Sartre), more great Gibbard/Stringfellow Beach Boys harmonies, and a brass herald worthy of the end times; as a track, it's fantastic, but break it down to its elements and it's almost embarrassing; the same could be said of a lot of rock music, I reckon; at least it's anti-religion.10A
Sean: How do the Christians sleep?DSS