In the early “Torch Song” two lovers share a moment, and in 1996 John Darnielle comments on rare music on Swedish radio.

Track: “Torch Song”
Album: The Hound Chronicles (1992)

In 1996, in between a Rickie Lee Jones cover and then-unreleased “Minnesota,” John Darnielle played “Torch Song” on a Swedish radio station. In the interview the host asks John if he will play one more, John says he will play one or two, and he plays four. He introduces “Torch Song” with “unless you have the very early tapes, you haven’t heard this one.”

The early fans collected tapes and live shows to complete collections as they sought out rarities like “Doll Song” and “You’re in Maya.” A lot of the early Goats songs are still only rumored to exist, and fans know the names of songs they’ve never heard and may never hear. There are different schools of thought on if those days were better or worse, but YouTube and Archive.org have opened up the catalog. There are still some songs with mystical names like “8 to 20 on a Weapons Charge” that will likely never see the digital light of day, but you can more or less hear everything, now.

Almost no one has a physical copy of The Hound Chronicles, but the digital world allows you to hear the tape version or the one from that Swedish interview. “Torch Song” is a frantic song about the comparison of the heat of actual light and the body heat of a lover’s fingertips “like a torch.” Like a lot of the super-early stuff, it’s here-and-gone fast, but it’s the version in that Swedish interview that’s worthy of note. The host says that even though that’s “an old one” (in 1996), he thinks he’s heard it. John is insistent that he likely hasn’t, and he was probably right. The world has changed, but to truly enjoy the very early Mountain Goats, one must remember how rare these once were.