In one of the best-loved songs the Mountain Goats ever wrote, “Woke Up New” examines a relationship the day after the fact.

Track: “Woke Up New”
Album: Get Lonely (2006)

I haven’t run the numbers, but I think it’s safe to say “Woke Up New” is the most popular song on Get Lonely. I think “Wild Sage” is the best song on the album and maybe the best song John Darnielle has ever written, but people love “Woke Up New.” Any time it’s played at a live show you will find couples embracing during it, which I really will never get used to seeing. It’s a crushing, brutal song that John Darnielle describes as being about one of the worst moments of his life, but the delivery seems to pass it off as a love song in some ways. There’s certainly a reading where these people are entranced by not the appearance of sweetness but the love they have being reflected in the fear of the loss of it, but it doesn’t really matter. A younger, angrier version of myself judged these people, but that’s the wrong way to live your life. They like the song, that’s all.

“Woke Up New” hit me immediately when I listened to Get Lonely, but as I spent more time with it I gravitated to the quieter, less accessible songs. “Woke Up New” is a phenomenal song, but it’s not one that I find puts me in the headspace that “Wild Sage” and “In the Hidden Places” do. It’s a breakup song like most of them are, but it’s one that feels like a story about a time rather than a demand for you to relive the time. John Darnielle often jokes in live shows about how he’s happily married and has all these songs about divorce, and depending on where you’re at on the timeline you may find “Woke Up New” to be exactly what you need.