“Then the Letting Go” opens Nothing for Juice with one look and little time to contemplate what we see.

Track: “Then the Letting Go”
Album: Nothing for Juice (1996)

“This is the hour of lead 
Remembered if outlived, 
As freezing persons recollect the snow – 
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.” – Emily Dickinson

With whisper-quiet songs like “Waving at You” and “It Froze Me,” Nothing for Juice is a unique album. It does end up stomping and screaming in “Going to Scotland,” but it opens in New York with “Then the Letting Go.” The title comes from the final line of the an Emily Dickinson poem about dealing with difficult emotions. The poem reflects on how one’s heart feels and how the effects of pain can linger before concluding with a grim image. There is a hopeful way to view it, sure, but it seems more likely that your final act is to “let go” in this context.

It seems like an odd choice for an opener. John Darnielle and Rachel Ware harmonize well and it’s one of the stronger songs on the album as a result, but it feels very brief. The song opens with “Down home in the South Bronx // down home” and “Saw you walking down the street again // saw you looking sweet again,” both lines that repeat the same ideas and expand them only slightly. The changes are small, but they add depth. It closes in similar fashion, with one head turn from the narrator and four questions that start with “why.” Many Mountain Goats songs are smaller collections of images, but few of them are just one look. We get just this one image of a narrator looking at a lover, a friend, or death itself, and then we’re gone.