By referencing a pianist who died young, “Dinu Lipatti’s Bones” shows us the difficult hopelessness of young love in turbulent situations.

Track: “Dinu Lipatti’s Bones”
Album: The Sunset Tree (2005)

I don’t believe anyone could come to the Mountain Goats and “get” everything right away. You’d need to be John Darnielle himself or someone so similar as to be unimaginable. You need to be a scholar of multiple religions, an expert on metal and similar genres of music, a professional wrestling fan of multiple eras, and a half-dozen other specific things. You need to have seen about 30 movies that have no connection at all. You need to have read deeply within completely disconnected types of literature and storytelling myth.

There is less of this required for The Sunset Tree. I don’t know how many times I heard “Dinu Lipatti’s Bones” before it occurred to me that Dinu Lipatti must be a real person. He was a Romanian pianist who died of cancer in his early 30s, but was apparently exceptional, especially known for the “purity of his interpretations.” Why John Darnielle chose him for this song is unclear, but I think the tragically young death is relevant for an album about youth. The Sunset Tree both looks at what actually happened and imagines what could have, which is the same headspace you find yourself in when you consider a too-young death of a genius of their field.

It’s also about how you force yourself to one pursuit. Dinu Lipatti lived a short life dominated by pursuit of perfection at his craft, John Darnielle’s narrator is in love and cannot make it work. Maybe it works for now, but the “dark dreams” in the song tell us it won’t work in the end.