The title track on Tallahassee opens the album with a mournful look at a love that won’t save two people.

Track: “Tallahassee”
Album: Tallahassee (2002)

“In the case of “Tallahassee” it seemed like a scene-setting song: it introduced the principal characters, established that there’s been a movement from the other side of the country to here, and took one last look in the rear view at the thing they once had that’s now in collapse.” – John Darnielle, on why the title track is first on Tallahassee.

The only part of Tallahassee that doesn’t happen in Florida happens in Nevada. The Alpha Couple (the common term for the couple on the album) is leaving their home and headed to the place where what’s already fallen apart will finally become impossible to deny. By verse three, the couple admits “there is no deadline // there is no schedule // there is no plan we can fall back on,” but we know they’re wrong about the next line: “the road this far can’t be retraced.” It can be retraced through dozens of other Alpha Couple songs, but they aren’t ready to do that. Not yet.

There is an inevitability to the sadness in both of them. Most Alpha Couple songs are bathed in descriptions of a dark future, so they never really seem to doubt how it will all end. That said, there’s more tied up in why these are “love songs” in “Tallahassee” than so many other places. The verse-ending “And you // you” is delivered with as much love as John Darnielle can muster. Even though you know how the story will end — it’s never a good sign when you say “prayers to summon the destroying angel” on the way to your new home — you have to understand the love these people once shared. It’s easy to see Tallahassee as an angry record, but its title track acts as a dirge for the best parts of The Alpha Couple.