With sinister strumming and some choice words, we get a dark vibe in “Heights.”

Track: “Heights”
Album: Nothing for Juice (1996)

If you want to hear “Heights” live, you have a single option of hearing it at this show in 2015. At another show they opened with it, but I can’t find a recording of that one. John Darnielle has said he likes to open sets with a song the audience might not know, and this definitely fits the bill. At that live show you can hear John Darnielle say he’s picking up a sheet with the lyrics on it. He says something close to “ah, right, seashells.” When you write this many songs and title them things that may or may not be in the songs themselves, sometimes you need to remember if this is the one about seashells.

“Heights” sounds like it could be a potential love song, maybe, but the delivery is so sinister. That doesn’t invalidate the “love song” descriptor, not for a Mountain Goats song, but this one is especially dark. John Darnielle almost snarls the “you were giving the game away” line one character says to the other. It always feels a little like you’re intruding on characters in songs like this, but here you feel like you really ought to be going.

Nothing for Juice ends with one of my favorite Mountain Goats songs, “Going to Scotland.” That’s another song that could be a love song but has some other things going on. You could say this about so many songs, but I like to imagine these are the same people, just a lot younger. A lot can change over time.