February 10 - Whole Wide World

Oh John, with your soft voice saying unsettling things. I'm being put to sleep and kept awake at the same time and by the same thing.

This is a song whose sadness is quiet and contained and no less devastating for that. It's small because sometimes the things that destroy us aren't big. Things end in tiny moments, where pain only needs to resonate inside you. There is no sound big enough, so keep the sound small.

There's a full band version of this on the Jordan Lake sessions. It's unhelpful to look at Mountain Goats songs as better or worse, but it's instructive to see the sadness of a young man compared to the considered regrets of an older one.