Synopsis

Jonathan Donahue walks through the Catskills carrying a rifle, attracting the attention of a mounted police officer. After the weapon is confiscated, he retreats to a small cabin, where he paints miniature Statues of Liberty and attaches them to his car. Joined by the rest of Mercury Rev, he drives toward a sign marked "America" while the police pursue him. The chase ends with comic harassment, a US flag, and the officers knocking the miniature statues from the vehicle.

Factoids & Trivia

• Two different music videos were made for "Goddess on a Hiway."

• The alternate version, included as an enhanced CD-ROM feature on the 1999 reissue, takes a quieter, more pastoral approach. Donahue, Grasshopper, and Adam Snyder hike through the Catskills, set up camp beside a lake, and take a canoe out for a fishing trip.

• The main video was filmed in the Catskills, matching the upstate New York atmosphere that shaped much of *Deserter's Songs*.

• The video's miniature Statues of Liberty turn the song's road imagery into an eccentric visual joke about America, migration, and national symbolism.

• "Goddess on a Hiway" was Mercury Rev's first single from *Deserter's Songs*. The song itself had originally been written by Jonathan Donahue in 1989, when he was still connected with The Flaming Lips, and was later rediscovered on an old cassette during the album sessions.

• The single first appeared in November 1998 and was reissued in August 1999, when the enhanced video helped give the release an extra multimedia component.