The world constantly invades an otherwise simple love story in “Evening in Stalingrad.”

Track: “Evening in Stalingrad”
Album: Full Force Galesburg (1997)

“Evening in Stalingrad” is in many ways one of the most straightforward songs on Full Force Galesburg. You don’t really need to know that Stolypin cars are a kind of prisoner railway car designed to transport farm animals. You don’t need to have any real understanding of the Soviet Union or Russian history. You just need to picture someone who says they can feel something in their “boiling brain” who is willing to say that people need to tear them to pieces to keep them from someone they feel this way about.

It’s a love song told in great detail. So many Mountain Goats songs are about giving you just enough detail that you can make out the big picture but not enough that it can be so specific as to not describe whatever you need it to describe. That’s the power of many songs, but John Darnielle went hyperspecific with “Evening in Stalingrad,” giving you a basic life story for this couple. At nineteen they meet, at twenty-four they drink and dance, and then they hide in a room and hope their love is enough.

Given the name of the song tells us the city was still called Stalingrad, this happens somewhere between 1925 and 1961. The last verse tells us the couple is hiding, though there are so many reasons they could be hiding that doesn’t narrow it down much. It doesn’t matter. “Evening in Stalingrad” shows us love and the larger context that makes love difficult, but still worth pursing.