January 4 - One Winter At Point Alpha Privative

The early songs of John Darnielle are like brilliant notes on index cards. Actually, not index cards. Receipts, bank deposit slips, Chinese food menus. They're urgent thoughts that spit an idea out as it's still forming, and they're all the better for that. if you want a record of exactly what John was thinking at exactly this time, it's right here for you in a concentrated burst.

What I get from this song, from its fast instrumentation, its purposely rushed vocals, and the frantic questions of its lyrics, is an overwhelming sense of a lifelong confusion. Things keep happening and you are aware enough to notice them but not to come close to the causes, and before you can digest these things there are more things. You're a kid in a car and your family stop somewhere and you get out and you're just starting to take in what this place is when it's time to get back in and move off again, and then suddenly it's thirty years later and you're married and you aren't who you were and nobody has at any point seen fit to tell you what the fuck is happening.

Life moves us on without stopping. If you can understand things then that's great, but there will be stories you didn't see start and will never see end, and that's fine. That's true of all of us. And as I attempt to understand this song the day moves on and soon I'll be somewhere else.