No Children

Submission 39,172

Part of a series on TikTok. [View Related Entries]

About

No Children is a 2002 indie-folk song by The Mountain Goats, which appeared on the band's 2002 album Tallahassee. In 2021, the song saw a resurgence after being used in a TikTok trend where users lipsync or lip-dub in skits.

Origin

The song "No Children" was written by John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats and appeared on the group's 2002 album, titled Tallahassee.^[1] The song has been described as a darkly humorous story about a couple going through a divorce,^[2] with the memorable refrain, "I hope you die, I hope we both die."

It's unclear when the song was first uploaded to TikTok, but there are two Original Sounds for the song on the platform: one uploaded by The Mountain Goats,^[3] which has been used over 1,900 times, and another by user @possumsprings,^[4] which has been used over 15,000 times, though it appears both originals have since been deleted. There are examples of videos using the sound dating back to 2020 (example shown below).

Spread

According to Vox,^[5] the song saw minor spread in January and February 2021 but took off in October. Vox points to an October 5th, 2021, video by user @jamesryanb in which they start by saying the song is "too depressing" before showing his appreciation for the song by screaming its lyrics. The video gained over 111,000 likes on the platform (shown below, left). The growing popularity of the song then led user @bisexualwentworth to point out most people on the app cut the song off before the lyric "I hope we both die," which in their estimation ruins the point of the song. Their video gained over 105,000 likes (shown below, right).

Others created skits based on the song's lyrics, often performing setup before using the lyric "I am drowning" as a punchline. For example, user @savedbythedells posted a video that ended with Jason Voorhees saying "I am drowning!," gaining over 180,000 likes (shown below, left). User @emi.loop posted a video that used a similar punchline, gaining over 216,000 likes (shown below, right).

The song's virality on the app was covered by multiple music publications in late October 2021, with writers for Vox,^[5] Consequence of Sound^[6] and The Mary Sue^[7] expressing how it seemed strange that a beloved song that wasn't especially well-known before hitting TikTok where it became a hit on the app. The song's prominence on the app made "No Children" the most popular Mountain Goats song on Spotify in October 2021.^[8]