John Darnielle references a particularly grim disease found in trees to tell us how miserable the narrator is in “Sudden Oak Death.”

Track: “Sudden Oak Death”
Album: Moon Colony Bloodbath (2009)

John Darnielle sings “Sudden Oak Death,” and calls it “emo” when talking about it. Given the style of song John Darnielle usually writes, it’s telling when he’s even willing to call one of his compositions “emo.” It does fit here in this song about a man unravelling completely and likening the experience to a disease that kills oak trees.

John Darnielle also says it doesn’t fit on the album, which makes a certain sense but also isn’t a big problem. Most of Moon Colony Bloodbath is about someone losing touch with humanity and deciding if that’s something they care about fixing or not. At this point they still do, but they’re coming to terms with their trajectory. John Darnielle’s characters sometimes deal with this on the way down, but with rare exceptions we don’t usually find out if they hit the bottom or not. Most of them feel like they might, but the camera pans away.

Moon Colony Bloodbath is different. This is one cohesive story with one person descending into monstrosity. They don’t even fear what might happen at this point, they just want to explain the impact it has on them. “Lose a little feeling in my fingers // gain an edge of panic in my face,” they tell us, but they really drill it home with several more descriptors. Darnielle wants us to understand how distant this person feels from their fellow man because that sets us up for what they’ll do when they feel all the way gone.