John Darnielle has some fun with metaphor as his narrator struggles to explain himself in “The Water Song.”
Track: “The Water Song”
Album: The Hound Chronicles (1992)
The early songs have simple names. In present day you get things like “Marduk T-Shirt Men’s Room Incident” but in the early days you got “Sun Song” and “The Water Song” and “Water Song II.” There’s nothing wrong with simplicity, it’s just interesting to see how the band has evolved.
The women who provide the backing vocals on the early records are collectively known as The Bright Mountain Choir. They’re really prominent on some of the best early stuff and they add some lightness to the surprisingly fun refrain of “let them kill me” that repeats 17 times in “The Water Song.” The early songs have a way of juxtaposing the extreme with incongruous joy.
It’s a song about the difficulties of communication. The narrator can’t get through to the person they’re talking to, so they try using metaphors. In the first two verses they use water, but the most beautiful part of the song is the third verse: “you’re the salesman // I’m the buyer // you’re the tractor // I’m the tire // I’m the glass // you’re the water that fills me.” There’s something about the cadence that sells it. Even though it’s hard to imagine what the exact conversation is, you can appreciate the attempt at colorful language in a personal crisis.
“The Water Song” rarely gets played live, but I encourage you to listen to this one to appreciate it. John Darnielle leads the audience as they sing the rousing, handclapping chorus and it feels like a song he could write now. He’s clearly embarrassed about some of the early, simpler songs, but “The Water Song” sounds great there. Despite that, he closes the song by saying “in probably its farewell appearance, ‘The Water Song'” so get it while you can.
A Few Things, Maybe Several Things 
[…] previous critic has read the song as being about the difficulties of making oneself understood, and that’s […]
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[…] A previous critic has read the song as being about the difficulties of making oneself understood, and that’s certainly one dimension of the piece, but I read it as focused on communication difficulties in a very specific situation: a situation where the toilet, or the sink or shower has clogged, and the narrator of the song is the reason why. The water springing out of the wall could be a pipe leak, or it could be toilet overflow, but the point is, it’s springing, shit just got real and one has to figure out what to do because there’s water and possibly waste all over the floor, the water is getting deeper. Everyone has bad days (“I guess the same thing will happen to us all”), and it is narrator’s turn. Given that the bathroom is upstairs, he might be staring stupefied at the floor unable to put words to what’s happening in front of him. But the consequences will be coming soon… […]
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