All right, let's be heretics. This song could not be more different from the previous album. Huge, bombastic, drums like gunshots, soaring strings, and a narrative about the focal role

All right, let's be heretics. This song could not be more different from the previous album. Huge, bombastic, drums like gunshots, soaring strings, and a narrative about the focal role of the killer in a slasher film. I love a good villain. And my definition of good villain is very

An interesting, although perhaps inevitable - thing about this album full of songs about loneliness: they're all first person. John's songs tend to be first person anyway, especially the ones

An interesting, although perhaps inevitable - thing about this album full of songs about loneliness: they're all first person. John's songs tend to be first person anyway, especially the ones that are to a degree autobiographical, but it strikes me listening to this one that it would be even more

After several days of solitude songs where the loneliness was the absence of a specific other, we come back to one where the absence is of... everyone. Alone not in

After several days of solitude songs where the loneliness was the absence of a specific other, we come back to one where the absence is of... everyone. Alone not in the crowd but in its absence. It's impossible to say if this is a better or worse loneliness but it

This song is a joyous whisper, a small delight that revels in its own quiet guilt. It's a song - as most of Get Lonely is - about absence, but

This song is a joyous whisper, a small delight that revels in its own quiet guilt. It's a song - as most of Get Lonely is - about absence, but it's a song that carried its own guilt. Not guilt for what the narrator has done, but distinct guilt for

This is a lush dark landscape of a song. It reminded me of some of the early Mountain Goats songs, which was appropriate, as this album seems to be revisiting

This is a lush dark landscape of a song. It reminded me of some of the early Mountain Goats songs, which was appropriate, as this album seems to be revisiting the places in retrospect that the early songs were experiencing as they happened. Fictional but not less real. This is

We reach the album's title track, and every word of it is a body blow. It's a day to day itinerary of things being done by someone who is alone

We reach the album's title track, and every word of it is a body blow. It's a day to day itinerary of things being done by someone who is alone in the sense of without one particular person. And I've mentioned it before on here but there was a period

Our tour of loneliness takes us somewhere quite specific this time: the loneliness not of being alone but of being without one person in particular. And, John being John, it

Our tour of loneliness takes us somewhere quite specific this time: the loneliness not of being alone but of being without one person in particular. And, John being John, it does so in the most jaunty, breathy way possible. There's a curse: life goes on. We can't help it, we

For a summer day this is a cold song, cold and sitting in empty and foggy space. What I get from this song is the ghosts of trauma. Voices in

For a summer day this is a cold song, cold and sitting in empty and foggy space. What I get from this song is the ghosts of trauma. Voices in dreams that aren't really there and don't say what they said. Memories given form and distorted through the process. Those

After an album of deeply personal songs where the identity of the I was known, it's interesting to get to a series of Mountain Goats songs from points of view

After an album of deeply personal songs where the identity of the I was known, it's interesting to get to a series of Mountain Goats songs from points of view that are more distant, more fictional, or otherwise exploring new ideas. John is nothing if not a sucker for a

Second half of the year begins here. This is a cheerful song about a villain, which is always nice to hear. I don't have much for this one today, even

Second half of the year begins here. This is a cheerful song about a villain, which is always nice to hear. I don't have much for this one today, even through this is a song about a pro wrestler and thus very in my wheelhouse. I've had a combination of

The revisiting of demos is one of my favourite parts about the late month in This Year. Rarities, strange versions of things, small pieces of nearly forgotten art, and amongst

The revisiting of demos is one of my favourite parts about the late month in This Year. Rarities, strange versions of things, small pieces of nearly forgotten art, and amongst them we have this: a song that is so perfect in its simple version that any studio version would feel

Before I get into the lyrics I just want to delight in the gorgeous, sumptuous orchestration of this track, which starts and frenetic jangling guitars and grows to a joy

Before I get into the lyrics I just want to delight in the gorgeous, sumptuous orchestration of this track, which starts and frenetic jangling guitars and grows to a joy of brass. And then we come to a fast upbeat set of lyrics about the futility of running from the

It's interesting to move away from the Sunset Tree and towards something that feels a lot fuzzier around the edges, albeit on a number of related subjects. This is a

It's interesting to move away from the Sunset Tree and towards something that feels a lot fuzzier around the edges, albeit on a number of related subjects. This is a song about change and how we cope with it or don't cope with it, and the realisation that the past

I don't have much to say about this one. It's musically beautiful, deeply sad, and something about it feels like listening to it is hearing something I'm not supposed to

I don't have much to say about this one. It's musically beautiful, deeply sad, and something about it feels like listening to it is hearing something I'm not supposed to hear. The unexpected deaths of the famous are often uncomfortable because of how the press treats them. The unexpected deaths

A small and occasionally visited microgenre of The Mountain Goats is that of songs of the last moments. Early in this year we had Jimi Hendrix. Later on we'll have

A small and occasionally visited microgenre of The Mountain Goats is that of songs of the last moments. Early in this year we had Jimi Hendrix. Later on we'll have artists and bluesmen. Here it's a reggae singer whose influence outstrips his fame. But this is also not a sing

This is a barely recorded song that seems to only exist online as a live taping complete with audience sound. It's like listening at a bedroom door to someone playing

This is a barely recorded song that seems to only exist online as a live taping complete with audience sound. It's like listening at a bedroom door to someone playing for themselves. When writing the book, John apparently thought there was no live version of this. I'm glad there is.

The way this year of songs moves from demos to much more produced material is part of its charm as each day is either a treat you know or a

The way this year of songs moves from demos to much more produced material is part of its charm as each day is either a treat you know or a curiosity to discover. This song is fascinating because it feels like one that needed to be written, needed to be

There's a sense in which this is a strange song to be on The Sunset Tree. It takes place a long time later, and while the your in the first

There's a sense in which this is a strange song to be on The Sunset Tree. It takes place a long time later, and while the your in the first verse is clearly the person who The Sunset Tree is about, everything about this song feels... later. A different person

A blast from the even further past, this song feels like an ancestor of the Sunset Tree but simultaneously sung by an older narrator, one who could get the perspective

A blast from the even further past, this song feels like an ancestor of the Sunset Tree but simultaneously sung by an older narrator, one who could get the perspective that The Sunset Tree deliberately eschews in favour of immediacy. It's a song about sadness regarding cruelty, and feels like

The thing about pain is that sometimes its temporary absence feels blissful. It's how a lot of people I've known with addiction issues have explained it to me. Just not

The thing about pain is that sometimes its temporary absence feels blissful. It's how a lot of people I've known with addiction issues have explained it to me. Just not being in pain. Up The Wolves is not without pain, it's a song about emotional and physical neglect and abandonment,