Update, April 2026: Hello again, Katrien-heads. Audio technology has moved on a bit in the past 13 years, and there are now free AI models that can do a surprisingly decent job of extracting an isolated vocal even from a song like this. I’ve used a couple of them and updated the transcript below based on what I hear. The first half is now much closer to being complete, although there are still various gaps and best-guesses.

The second half of the song remains mostly unintelligible, although a few words and phrases are now distinguishable. It sounds like he may be talking about a rather nasty criminal case, or perhaps multiple such cases. Perhaps in another thirteen years an AI superintelligence will be able to tell us.

Original: I’ve always loved the song Katrien by Mogwai, from their album Mogwai Young Team. It’s often classed as an instrumental, but there are spoken vocals, although they are low in the mix and frequently drowned out almost completely by the music. According to the band themselves, the words are then-member Brendan O’Hare “talking shite about yetis or something like that, don’t ask me why“. O’Hare was later kicked out of the band, allegedly for talking during an Arab Strap performance. Rock and roll.

Anyway, despite them clearly being rambly nonsense, I’ve always been curious as to what the words spoken during Katrien actually are, and since nobody else on the internet seems to have attempted to properly transcribe them, the below represents my best effort. The parts I’ve found so far inaudible or unintelligible are indicated with an ellipsis, and bear in mind that that’s probably about 70% of the song, but I’ve worked out enough to get a flavour of the whole.

Although O’Hare does start off by talking about Yetis, the main influence on the words seems to be Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche. Some parts, such as those about “dying at the right time” are almost direct quotations.

I’ve been reading about and looking at pictures of Yetis from various parts of the globe. Pakistan, China and Malaysia. Although you always go into these things with more than a sense of skepticism, I can remember thinking, why not, seems honest.

In the distance Napoleon shoots the nose off the Sphinx … to tempt me, I suppose. Didn’t wash with me, he was trying too hard… Anyway under the cover of a cannon’s fire <fart noise>, I made a beeline for the door.

Past that, in a corridor lined with books, I met an interesting man called Frederick, told me that many people die too late and a few too early. Should try to let them die at the right time. Don’t become a domestic animal, a herd animal, a sick human animal. A Christian. For death is no festival.

New religions from other worlds were his last words to me as I walked through (the arch of?) cosmology. God’s plan was whispered around the room as I was taken up a level. Upstairs I could see (to?) space, time, the centre of the galaxy. I could see the Horsehead nebula and Orion, and the far reaches of the universe where time began.

This view enabled me to see that time is not created by anything or anyone, merely started. Frederick was right.

Soon I realised where my eyes … large man in the cloud, that this is the point of genesis for all human life in the universe. Here hidden in the vast cosmos of the whole of time and space are planets for us to populate … lies the original form of man, a (nouveau?) home… descended from an … ancestor … we are merely a point in the spiral … expanding throughout the universe. No past, no future .. moving … no end.

My thought process becomes more fluid the longer I remain in this … state, and my brain is unchained from (the earth?). I leave my body … my mind … I can no longer see or hear or feel anything. I see and hear and feel everything simultaneously.

I awake in the corridor with Frederick smiling, and standing over me. “Did I not tell you?” he said. “How did you know?” “How do you know?” He smiled and walked off. And from where I was lying I could see the sandy exterior of the Sphinx.

… two year old daughter … parent … pleaded guilty with a lawyer … last person to see … alive … character.

The above was transcribed via careful repeated listens with headphones and much fiddling of the equalizer. If anyone with better audio equipment or processing skillz can provide any further suggestions, let me know in the comments. Unfortunately some bits, particularly the latter section where there seems to be multiple voices talking at once, will probably never be intelligible without hearing an isolated vocal from the original recording.