Rise

Formats

• ---

  MRG516CDCD  £12.00

• ---

  MRG516LPLong Player  £22.00

Label

Merge

Mountain Goats

Beat The Champ

Beat the Champ is about professional wrestling, which was an avenue of escape for me when I was a kid. Wrestling was low-budget working class entertainment back then, strictly UHF material. It was cheap theater. You had to bring your imagination to the proceedings and you got paid back double. I wrote these songs to re-immerse myself in the blood and fire of the visions that spoke to me as a child, and to see what more there might be in them now that I'm grown.

— John Darnielle, Durham, NC

Tracklist

• 1. Southwestern Territory
  2. The Legend of Chavo Guerrero
  3. Foreign Object
  4. Animal Mask
  5. Choked Out
  6. Heel Turn 2
  7. Fire Editorial
  8. Stabbed to Death Outside San Juan
  9. Werewolf Gimmick
  10. Luna
  11. Unmasked!
  12. The Ballad of Bull Ramos
  13. Hair Match