http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bLSgWd8jbk

Two lovers share a quiet moment and feel a different kind of warmth as the sun sets in Memphis in “Going to Tennessee.”

Track: “Going to Tennessee”
Album: Why You All So Thief? (1994) and Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

John Darnielle loves geography. There are at least 50 “Going to…” songs in the catalog, but I never expected to find one about my hometown. I’m from Memphis, Tennessee, which is a far less exotic location than Bolivia or Denmark or Malibu, but it’s a specific kind of place that conjures an image in your mind even if you haven’t been there.

Darnielle’s song “Going to Tennessee” is heavy on specifics even though it avoids the ones you’d think. There’s no Elvis or Beale Street or anything even like them. We only get scattered facts, like the lack of a baseball team and the presence of Arkansas nearby.

“Going to Tennessee” uses specificity to set the stage on the Mississippi River in Memphis, but it’s after more general emotions. The couple lives close to the interstate and they share tender moments in their likely dingy apartment. One washes their face and the other says “I am glad I am alive,” which is an extremely rare sentence in a Mountain Goats song. We’re left to discern that they share at least a kind of love. That’s not uncommon by itself, but these two exit their song in an interesting place.

John Darnielle has said the song is about “cheating death” and there is no better way to feel like you’ve gotten one over on the end times than to feel boundless love. The sun is setting in one of the hottest towns in America, but the couple describes their skin as “warming up.” It’s not solely a love song, but that ending suggests at least one more day of joy for two people in the Bluff City.