August 20 - Birth of Serpents

One of the best things about Mountain Goats songs is sometimes you will come across a line so perfect you have to wonder if it came from somewhere else and then conclude that it's original. A young man dwelling inside his body like an uninvited guest is a perfect way of describing the awkward pain of existence for young people who haven't found their place, who worry that they might not have a place, and who may be right.

A lot of counter culture songs don't work because they - understandably - put too much time into making the counterculture sound cool. They're acts of self deception about the idealised version of you who chose to be like this, who would be this way even if there was the choice to be otherwise. Or they're songs about the wretched thing you are, contemptible and tragic. What John Darnielle does is way harder: his songs look at the person, see their flaws, give no hiding places from them, and then accepts the person anyway. You are broken, you are imperfect, you are either not correctly made or not correctly used by the world. But there is beauty in you, there is something to love. There is someone it is worth remembering.