One character tries to convince another to take a midnight ride during the snappy “Pure Milk.”

Track: “Pure Milk”
Album: Hot Garden Stomp (1993)

With a finger-snap beat and the old Casio groove behind it, “Pure Milk” is absolutely a highlight of the early era. It’s the only song from Hot Garden Stomp that you might hear at a live show, but even then your odds are very low. There are a few great performances online you can dig up that show what a modern “Pure Milk” sounds like. It’s different now, with more intensity and fierce guitar, but the improved quality also changes some of the charm.

I’ve said before that no one should start their Mountain Goats journey with the truly old songs, but you might be able to start your journey through the early Goats with “Pure Milk.” The narrator slurs the first verse about getting drunk and stealing tractors to ride into town. John Darnielle embodies his eerie speaker here and you feel the simmering emotions within the character as you listen to it. The chorus of “put your hand on the goddamned radio” feels like a frustrated command.

Some of the early songs are interesting as experiments. Sometimes the charm isn’t in the finished product so much as the joy you feel from John Darnielle. “Pure Milk” is a fully realized idea and the song is that much the better because of it. Like the other “pure” songs, the narrator has a brief idea to get across to one other character. It starts with bravado and a concrete plan but breaks down over the second verse. The narrator’s confidence is shaken by a moment of hesitation. Sometimes that’s enough to derail a plan, but we leave this scene before we know how it ends. Catchy as it is, it’s the fear within it that makes it so hypnotic.