When I saw The Mountain Goats at The Caverns in April last year, I wondered why John Darnielle chose to introduce “No Children” by singing the first verse of “I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack. Admittedly, I didn’t give it much thought afterward, because I was in a literal cave seeing one of my favorite bands for the first time. Some details kind of took a backseat to that fact.
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However, when I stumbled across a quote from Darnielle about the origins of “No Children,” it all suddenly clicked with the kind of clarity that causes uncontrollable, deranged laughter. Seeing as I was in a coffee shop at the time, this was a little bit embarrassing. Still, the mystery of the “I Hope You Dance” intro was finally solved for me.
“No Children” was released on The Mountain Goats’ 2002 record Tallahassee, a concept album featureing a toxic, hateful couple who move to a dilapidated house in Tallahassee, Florida. The Alpha Couple have been featured across a few of The Mountain Goats’ narratives, but Tallahassee is, in my opinion, where they really stand out.
Around the time the record was being written, Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance” was a big hit. It released in 2000 on Womack’s album of the same name. According to Darnielle, this song was everywhere, and he hated it.
[RELATED: The Mountain Goats Find a Unique Home at The Caverns for Their One-of-a-Kind Sound]
John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats Explains the Origins of “No Children”
In 2021, “No Children” became a viral hit on TikTok (for reasons that have not fully been explained). Suddenly, the song went from a cult hit on a 20-year-old concept album, to a social media sound bite. Speaking with Variety at the time, Darnielle explained the songs origins and commented on its sudden popularity.
“Why is ‘No Children’ just creeping up on this year? It was wild,” he said, stating that the new attention on the song was ultimately fun for the band. He added, “It was always our No. 2 song. It’s one of my better songs. But the force of it moving up was really pretty fun to watch.”
Darnielle then shared the idea that spawned his No. 2 song while he was writing Tallahassee. “I was driving to the Des Moines airport, and there was a song on the charts called ‘I Hope You Dance,’” he explained. “And I hated this song, a lot … So I was driving, and I let it play. Often when there’s a song I don’t like, I will listen to it to pick apart my response. Because it could be just that it makes me uncomfortable or that I’m resisting the emotion.”
He added that this response happened once with a 10,000 Maniacs song, but clarified that wasn’t the case with Lee Ann Womack’s hit. “I just thought it was a bunch of platitudes,” he said. “I ad-libbed ‘I hope you die’ over ‘I hope you dance.’ I thought, that’s funny — I should have my alpha couple say that to each other. And then I patterned the whole composition of it after that, because ‘I Hope You Dance’ is a bunch of ‘I hopes,’ and that’s the whole song.”
“I Hope That If I Find the Strength To Walk Out / You Stay the Hell Out of My Way”
“No Children” is a bunch of “I hopes,” too, said Darnielle, “but from a spiteful perspective.” However, that detail was never written about when publications covered the song’s release. “[W]e didn’t put it in the press kit, and if you don’t say something like that in the press kit, nobody even notices, which is very depressing,” Darnielle said.
“But it seemed so obvious to me at the time!” he exclaimed, adding, “It’s essentially an answer record. People don’t even make that many answer records any more, but this one kind of is.”
Just like he did at The Caverns show that I attended, John Darnielle is known for performing the “I Hope You Dance” verse to introduce “No Children” at live shows. While I was confused about it at the time—not immediately putting together the common thread of the “I hopes”—it’s since become one of my favorite tidbits of Mountain Goats lore.
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