“Prowl Great Cain” explodes over and over, but the music clouds the story of someone haunted by their actions.

Track: “Prowl Great Cain”
Album: All Eternals Deck (2011)

The energy in “Prowl Great Cain” is what makes it for me. If you love the Mountain Goats you have to love John Darnielle’s voice, but I think this performance is deserving of special mention. Whether you’re talking about live performances or just the studio cut, Darnielle hits a dozen specific moments of snarl and punches the pucker you have to make with your mouth on “prowl” every time. I’ve leaned on the term “explosion” too hard when describing any song that’s uptempo and has drums, but I think you’ve really got to use it here. I just love the way he sings this one and I love the driving rhythm that somewhat plays against it. If you don’t tense up, in a good way, when you hear “feel the prickings of my conscience in my chest” then I cannot get you there.

You have to take a little bit of a walk for the meaning. The title references Cain, the first murderer in the Bible who is cursed with a life of barren fields and the space to let his conscience work on him, but the narrator here is not Cain. Darnielle has introduced the song as happening in Cambodia in 1976, which will lead you to understand the lyrics as a narrator that has sold out someone, a neighbor or a friend, and how they deal with the knowledge that in this place, at this time, the consequences there are dire. It’s a layered set of references, complex even for the Mountain Goats, but the connection is clear and it rewards listening to it with both layers in your mind.