John Darnielle shows us two people who want to believe they aren’t the problem in “Soft Targets.”

Track: “Soft Targets”
Album: Bedside Recordings Vol. 1.2 (2003)

People love to debate if any Mountain Goats song is “an Alpha Couple song” or not. Nearly all of them have the word Alpha in the title, but it isn’t true of all of them. This allows you to believe that any song you want to believe is about the miserable, doomed Alpha Couple is, in fact, about them. You have that freedom and no one can tell you otherwise. I get the argument and it seems like a safe bet, but I don’t think so. I think these two have too much perspective and, notably, a baby, though the story of the Alpha Couple sometimes breaks from the otherwise clear “No Children” rule.

“There’s not going to be a hero,” John Darnielle said once about songs like this, and about “Soft Targets” specifically he said “there are just two people fucking up.” This is true of Mountain Goats songs even when they aren’t about the Alpha Couple. The message of John Darnielle, very often, is that people and situations are complicated. The entire first verse here realizes a terrifying scene very clearly, with one person breaking plates and the other desperately trying and failing to deescalate.

It’s the final verse that does it, though. “When I hunt down the vampire that did this to us, I will rip out his heart with my hands” is an all-time scream line for John Darnielle, but it’s also something to investigate. No one “did this” to these people, they did it. “Soft targets” in military speak are people, as opposed to “hard targets” like buildings, and they are casualties. These two characters want to believe an outside force has ruined things, but the call is coming from inside the house.