March 26 - Crows

This song begins at the intersection of a variety of John's abilities hitting their full maturity. The guitar work, confidence of voice, and beauty of the lyrics all come together into a rather perfect piece of folk music about the past becoming even more the past.

I've lived in North Carolina, not as rural as the parts in this song, but not that far off, and the image of the past being both swallowed up by the sea of nature and torn up by the march of the present is a really compelling one to me. A place that can never decide if it's prehistoric or old or new. Old graveyards and graduate student housing and the floods of crows. Past and future and a lack of time all at the same time, capturing the impermanence of the permanent and the impatience of the present with the past

Because the line about "maybe it was the right grave, maybe not" made me think of it, here's a very silly song from a band who I often think inhabit a far off portion of the same plane as the Mountain Goats: