Once upon a time, I experienced real heartbreak.

Not that kind of high school “Omigawd I love(d) her, look what she did to me” sort of heartbreak … the kind that leads you to clod around the house barefoot for four days, wearing the same sweater and ripped pair of jeans you wore the day before, because you just don’t see the need to do laundry. The kind that makes you start of the morning with Irish coffees … the kind that makes you lie in bed for three hours after you were supposed to leave for work, because you just don’t see the need to get up. If you’ve been there, you know it. If not, you’re lucky, but it will probably happen at some point (I’m sorry). In hindsight, I can’t help but think that if I had this album, things might have been a little bit easier. Not any better, mind you. Nothing helps when you’re feeling so lost. It might just have gone a little bit … easier.

Judging from the Mountain Goats’ 2006 release “Get Lonely,” John Darnielle has experienced this too. So much so, that he wrote an entire album about it. Centered around the weeks following what seems to be an failed marriage, each track represents a day-in-the-life of a guy who’s trying to just make it through the days, one day at a time, while everything around him just serves as a reminder. It’s different than the usual lo-fi indie-folk fare, though, in that rather than saying “you’re depressed? I’m depressed too,” it seems to say “let’s be depressed together … I understand.” There’s in inescapable feeling that, even if the details of the situation are foreign, you know exactly what he’s talking about. Someone who I greatly respect once said that “the pain of life is in the details” … OK, so maybe that person was me, but it doesn’t change the profoundness of it.

The lyrics on “Get Lonely” are all about the details. The ache of driving by the movie theater and, for a second, looking to see if there’s anything you want to see before realizing that you have no one to see it with. The feeling of such intense loneliness that you go find a public place and walk around just so that you feel like you’re with people. The kind that makes you want to spend time with family you may otherwise try to ignore, because … well … you don’t really know why.

“On the morning when I woke up without you for the first time
I felt free and I felt lonely and I felt scared
And I began to talk to myself almost immediately
Not being used to being the only person there

The first time I made coffee for just myself, I made too much of it
But I drank it all just cause you hate it when I let things go to waste
And I wandered through the house like a little boy lost in the mall
And an astronaut could've seen the hunger in my eyes from space

And I sang
Oh, What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
What do I do without you?”
- Get Lonely

(Ouch.)

“I will rise up early and dress myself up nice
And I will leave the house and check the deadlock twice
And I will find a crowd and blend in for a minute
And I will try to find a little comfort in it

And I will get lonely
And gasp for air
And send your name off from my lips
Like a signal flare

And I will go downtown, stand in the shadows of the buildings
And button up my coat, trying to stay strong - spirit willing
And I will come back home, maybe call some friends
Maybe paint some pictures, it all depends”
- Get Lonely

(Double-ouch.)


“Saw you on the crosstown bus today
You were reading a magazine
I turned my face away
And I shut my eyes tight
Dreamed about the flowers that hide from the light
On dark hillsides in the hidden places

The brakes howled and the bus pulled up near my house
And I got off at the corner
Pulled my sleeves down over my hands, over my hands
And I wished I was someone else
And I wished it was warmer.”
- In the Hidden Places

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoracotomy)

Perhaps what saves this from falling into that dreaded realm of “emo” is that there’s that certain hint disconnect and humorous irony in the music that keeps you from feeling too bad about yourself. Darnielle is writing about events – not feelings. In doing so, he unmasks the darkness within, and shows that it really has no power over us … oh, Jesus, I’m going high-school goth on us now ... I better cut this short. I mean, after all, if this guy lived through it, why can’t you? Good question. Thanks, John. Yer a good guy.