“Anti-Music Song” may not represent John Darnielle’s current musical views, but it’s still a fun curiosity.

Track: “Anti-Music Song”
Album: Tropical Depression EP (w/ Furniture Huschle) (1997)

“Anti-Music Song” is about a minute and a half long. It’s a “joke” song from the era where there were “joke” songs. You could call modern Mountain Goats songs like “Foreign Object” jokes, but the older albums and EPs have songs that are shorter and typically solely about the central joke of the thing.

It is hard to approach a song like this because there isn’t that much below the surface. John Darnielle won’t play “Anti-Music Song” live now and says he doesn’t agree with most of the goofs. You can do some digging and find commentary about who the “bad imitation” of Morrissey is or who the “imitation of an imitation of Jimi Hendrix” is, but what does it matter? John Darnielle has said most of these aren’t even his opinions anymore, thus the song is dead, thus it doesn’t matter beyond a footnote for what it meant at the time.

The most enduring element of “Anti-Music Song” is the final line. After slamming a half dozen people, directly or indirectly, the character says “and I don’t like you // I don’t like you.” It’s straightforward to the point of being notable. So many songs in the early days are about the world ending to signify how two people feel about each other or cooking as a representation for the final day of one’s life or a million other things that you really notice when someone just yells at another person. John Darnielle built on this all the way to the apotheosis of the idea on Tallahassee, and it’s fun to see the early, furious efforts in songs like this and “Cubs in Five.”