Franklin Bruno’s “Communicating Doors” shows us a night in a hotel and what happens on nights you “don’t recall.”

Track: “Communicating Doors”
Album: Undercard (2010)

The Mountain Goats Wiki is not exhaustive and is sometimes wrong, which John Darnielle has commented on during live shows and podcast appearances. We live in a world that so consistently relies on online sources and the availability of all information that this seemingly obvious fact can be easy to forget. Just because something isn’t on a list online doesn’t mean that list is accurate, but “Communicating Doors” is the only original Extra Lens song that has no mentions of being played live. This does not mean it’s never happened, but it means no one wrote it down if it has.

Franklin Bruno wrote “Some Other Way,” “How I Left the Ministry,” and “Communicating Doors.” The other two, and “Only Existing Footage” which he wrote with John Darnielle, have all been played live. It makes one wonder what makes this one special. I don’t have a concrete answer and I think it may not necessarily be the right question, as the Extra Lens didn’t really tour that often, anyway. I mostly mention it because I’d love to hear this one live. The instruments are warmer here than they are elsewhere on Undercard and maybe that’s tough to do live. I don’t really know.

The song fits with the themes of the album if you assume this is a halting love affair. That’s how I’ve always read it, with the duo stay in adjoining rooms with an understanding that they will meet in one of them but want to keep the ruse alive that they might not. Mountain Goats songs are often about the end of love, but Extra Lens songs are about the situations that surround those emotions.