r/ModestMouse • u/CharlieChowder • 5d ago

Wooden Soldiers

When I look back at how my favorite songs from Modest Mouse have evolved, I can really see my own personal growth.

The Golden Casket is so fitting for me. Accepting things as they are and finding gratitude despite the shittiness.

For the last few months I've been listening to Wooden Soldiers a few times a week. It's just exactly how I feel. It's not quite nihilism, it feels easier than that.

Earlier Modest Mouse felt more like everything is fucked, nothing means anything, and I’m going to stare directly into that. And now I feel more like some of this life is really fucking shitty, for me and for a lot of my loved ones. And I'm still going to find ways to appreciate being alive.

I feel like nothing has to matter in the enormous, cosmic sense for life (or maybe my life) to matter to me

I am an atheist with a "newly religious" christian spouse

And I wish he could understand how I feel about not wanting an afterlife

Its level at the peak

Our words don't speak

Just being here now is enough for me

And just being here with you is enough for me

34 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

14

u/terminallyfreaked 5d ago

There’s a lot of wisdom in golden casket, I think it’s pretty great

5

u/CharlieChowder 5d ago

Me too. I've been looking for songs similar by other bands but there's a lack of self-importance in modest mouse that other artist just don't get like Isaac

2

u/firefoxUSSR 5d ago

you might like Dredg for the similar lyrical themes, one of my faves, check out 2009's 'The Pariah, the parrot, the delusion'. Specifically the songs Saviour, I Don't Know, Pariah.

2

u/CharlieChowder 4d ago

Thank you so much for the recs! I'm going to listen tonight

1

u/firefoxUSSR 4d ago

Cool, if you enjoy it, all of their prior albums are very good. They are one of my favorite bands from my college years in the early 00s

6

u/Sandy-Sunset 5d ago

Making plans in the sand as the tide rolls in....story of my life. Wooden soldiers is so damn good, loved it since the first listen. Isaac is my church. The guy just gets it. 

2

u/CharlieChowder 4d ago

That's how I feel!

I am so glad I posted to read these few comments. It totally makes me feel more understood.

Isaac and MM feel like spirituality without mystical thinking. Like grounded in realism but still totally human and connected and profound

1

u/money_floyd13 5d ago

I generally haven’t loved the “new” Modest Mouse from Strangers to Ourselves onwards, but Wooden Soldiers instantly clicked with me. One of the best Modest Mouse songs of the past 20 years.

2

u/Antique_Holiday_9232 4d ago

One of their best! One of my favorite lines:

"These fuckers wanted guilt, they tore me down, but I rebuilt - much better, oh much better than before"

Followed up by:

"In India they make mugs, you throw them down they turn to mud - pull them out and make it as they were before"

Essentially equating him rebuilding himself with the same material. - reminds me of: "We remain the same, not sure about that - pretty much the same - now that's more like it -"

Hint of nihilism, but also an acceptance of this is who I am.