The bouncy, fun song about failing marriage that is “Going to Maine” could only be written by John Darnielle.

Track: “Going to Maine”
Album: Ghana (1999)

“Going to Maine” was recorded live and released on Hardcore Acoustic, a tape put out by Shrimper Records in 1993. You can buy a copy for about $30 if you can find someone to sell you one. It has a few other songs, including a Franklin Bruno song and a song from Peter Hughes’ solo project.

This is a “funny” song, but that may be oversimplifying it. John Darnielle said it was “one of those songs that you think is funny, and people who like Mountain Goats songs think is funny, but everybody else wonders what on Earth you’re talking about.” This is as good a summation as any.

You can picture a time when this would have been a “hit.” That term doesn’t really work for the kind of music the Mountain Goats make, but there are a lot of songs from just a few years later that were big among “college rock” fans that sound a lot like this. It’s catchy, you pick it up quickly, and it’s funny, even if it’s about a divorce. The subject matter is probably too weird for some, but “your husband // my wife // my marriage // your life” as a four-line verse-ender is about as clear as you can get.

John Darnielle says he wrote “Going to Maine” with an image of Maine as a magical, distant place. A lot of the “Going to…” songs have this vibe to them, where the location doesn’t matter except that it’s far away. Don’t look for the significance of Maine in this one, it’s just about getting far, far away from California and, in this case, far away from a love that’s over without being done.