https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UKfNvxuuus

John Darnielle juxtaposes a soft tune with a creeping message of doom in “Idylls of the King.”

Track: Idylls of the King”
Album: Tallahassee (2002)

It is nothing new to call Tallahassee special. It’s a real turning point for John Darnielle, though you could make a case for a half-dozen other albums as the “turning point.” I think something that doesn’t get enough credit is the album’s range, as it goes between screaming, dark rage and almost-wistful melancholy. The narrative barrels on through the Alpha Couple’s marriage as it decays in Florida, but the couple expresses it through songs that ebb and flow.

“Idylls of the King” takes a title from Tennyson, but if it takes more than that I cannot say. The opening verse describes a setting that might be hopeful, but then likens the promise and potential of a new day to clay pigeons to be shot out of the sky. By the second verse, the narrator imagines vultures and locusts surrounding them. Tallahassee as a setting is meant to do a lot of things, but Florida as a mixture of an aspiration and a nightmare is an easy sell even without the failing marriage. This is extreme, but you can see it.

We’re still close to the middle, here. The very next song is “No Children,” where this narrator will no longer hold back, but there’s still some small level of restraint. “How long will we ride this wave out,” they ask, though we know it’s not really going to stop. You don’t say that your dreams are “haunted by armies, armies of ghosts” to anyone that you believe you can build more of a life with, do you? The tune itself may feel light, but the message shows this is as set as the scene can be for the crash that’s coming next.