http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW8WJrb0XmY

John Darnielle flips the perspective of a real dark moment from his life to look at one of his own lowest points in “Mole.”

Track: “Mole”
Album: We Shall All Be Healed (2004)

People think it’s the frantic, screaming songs that mean the most, but John Darnielle has always said that it’s the quiet ones that matter. Songs like “Waving at You” and “Mole” speak of the darkest parts. When performing “Mole” live, John will sometimes step away from the microphone and quietly recite the song into what rapidly becomes a silent audience. It’s more like a prayer than a song.

“Mole,” like the rest of We Shall All Be Healed, is about a group of drug addicts in the Pacific Northwest. They don’t fear death at all, but they deeply fear getting caught. In “All Up the Seething Coast,” the narrator is clear that “a thousand dead friends won’t stop me” because death doesn’t matter. What matters is getting caught, because then you will have to be alive without drugs.

In “Mole” a character has his head wrapped in bandages and is handcuffed to a bed. The reality behind the song’s creation is necessary to fully understand it. John has said that he is the handcuffed man, and that’s it’s based on something that really happened to him. He woke up handcuffed to a bed and spoke to a nurse he knew, only to find that he wasn’t going to be let out this time.

“Mole” is very minimal. The strum in the background feels like an IV drip, slowly falling in behind the lyrical description of a man chained to a bed. The chorus of “I am a mole / sticking his head above the surface of the earth” reminds us that this character has had very little time to consider his situation. He’s only interested in the cycle he’s created for himself, and in this dark moment his biggest fear is that they might try to stop it.