The Mountain Goats’ new record weaves a tale fit for Broadway

John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats had a dream, and one of the few things he remembered upon waking was an album title: Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan. You can guess where this is going.

“I said to myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if you did that?’,” Darnielle says. “Lots of my ideas that I go through with start with, ‘That would be hilarious’.”

The Mountain Goats’ upcoming album, out Nov. 7, is a full-fledged musical, and it features contributions from Tony Award winner and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Today, we’re sharing live performances from The Mountain Goats, plus Darnielle talks about making the new album.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod.  Our digital producer is Miguel Perez. World Cafe’s engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.