The narrator of “Historiography” only remembers one (or ten) things about love and wants to tell you about that one (or ten).

Track: “Historiography”
Album: Transmissions to Horace (1993) and Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

Historiography is the study of how history is written and kept, and that is a concept central to the Mountain Goats. Unreliable narrators, loners, people lost to society, and other misfits are sprinkled through the catalog, and it’s important to always consider the source when reading history, be it of great nations or of a relationship.

“Historiography” is originally from Transmissions to Horace, which may be considered the third official Goats release. It’s tough to number them — especially because Transmissions to Horace was released in its entirety, with other albums, on Bitter Melon Farm six years later — but it’s enough to say that this is one of the earliest existing songs. The title of the album suggests that John Darnielle is talking to history itself as it name drops the famous poet from the early days of the Roman Empire. This particular transmission is filled with forlorn strumming and an overall tone that makes you hear rain that isn’t really falling.

Our narrator is in love. It’s the kind of love that strikes you dumb and makes you say passionate, immediate things. They recount their own history of a beautiful moment by repeating “all I remember” about the situation. The early “you were warm // and that’s all I remember” is a sweet sentiment, but by the tenth thing that is “all I remember” it’s clear that our character is too in love to focus on the structure of how they show it. “Historiography” is aptly named, because it doesn’t so much matter what happened as it does how they record it. The narrator cares more about getting everything said than they do about wondering if each thing really is the only thing they remember. Moment to moment history is as important as that of time when you’re this in love.