Two decades later, “Are You Cleaning Off the Stone?” sounds a little rough but still very sweet.

Track: “Are You Cleaning Off the Stone?”
Album: Hot Garden Stomp (1993)

Hot Garden Stomp is a strange release, because unlike most of the early albums there isn’t a clear standout song. Even Taboo VI: The Homecoming, the very first release from 1991 that John Darnielle has repeatedly panned, has “Going to Alaska.” John has told people for years to not look up the first album, but “Going to Alaska” still gets played live now. Nothing from Hot Garden Stomp is really in the rotation anymore.

“Beach House” and “Sun Song” are indicative of the early Mountain Goats style. They’re a little silly, but they’re also dramatic, wordy looks at difficult situations, when considered as metaphors. Well, maybe not “Beach House,” which is mostly about how vicious seals can be, but “Sun Song” is certainly an early prototype for later, more serious songs like “Alpha Rat’s Nest.”

“Are You Cleaning Off the Stone?” fits nicely with the rest of the album and with 1993-era Mountain Goats, then. You can hear The Bright Mountain Choir, the name for the female vocalists from early Goats recordings, and they sound fantastic. There’s no denying the roughness of the cassette recording, but devotes eventually learn to take that roughness as the price of looking through a portal to two decades ago.

The song is a simple one, but that doesn’t detract from the sweetness. My favorite interpretation is that the “stone” is a headstone, and this is a dead character speaking to someone they loved in life. Maybe that’s the case (it would explain how they can’t “hear”), but even if you don’t buy that you have to give it up for one of the all-time great turns of phrase in the catalog: “They tell me your eyes are the same color as they always were // That kind of information just floors me.”