“Against Pollution” is all about those opening lines, but after the shock it asks you to imagine your own reaction.

Track: “Against Pollution”
Album: We Shall All Be Healed (2004)

“Against Pollution” is not a true story. A whole lot of We Shall All Be Healed is, but this one is just about how you might feel if you found yourself in this situation. A lot of Mountain Goats songs are about things that happen, remarkable or otherwise, in a store. This is, maybe, though I never want to make statements like this that I can’t prove, the only one where someone works behind the counter. It’s a shifted perspective away from the people shoplifting or going through episodes or otherwise having an unrelated experience, and it’s honestly one that’s pretty easy to explain. If someone comes in and tries to kill you, you may have to do what you have to do.

This is an easy statement to make unless you have to interrogate it. The narrator here doesn’t, really, going so far as to say this happened “a year or so ago.” You probably always have a pretty good grasp on exactly when you shot someone in the face, unless you’re the kind of person who didn’t really have to interrogate it. “Against Pollution” is a great song, especially live where the whole thing feels like rain and thunder, but the point I always focus on is how this person feels about what happened. They mention that “something just came over” them and that they went to the Catholic church. This feels disconnected in the song from the self-defense gunshot. Who is this person that would “do it again” and what are we to make of how they talk about this? It’s not fully a judgement, but it’s an interesting look into something you don’t want to imagine for yourself.