“Outer Scorpion Squadron” strongly embraces the darkness, even considered among other Mountain Goats songs.

Track: “Outer Scorpion Squadron”
Album: All Eternals Deck (2011)

Many years ago, one of the richest people I’ve ever met in person saw that I was wearing the classic original Mountain Goats shirt that says “I only listen to the Mountain Goats.” The line is tongue-in-cheek, sorta, but it’s also not. This incredibly rich, powerful person said “you only listen to the Mountain Goats? You must want to kill yourself!” The glibness and the horror of it stuck with me as a reminder of how divorced from the real world you can become, as I did not really know this man, but it only occurred to me later that he had to have some familiarity with John Darnielle’s music to even know that it was appropriate to judge his music as “sad,” even though the way he expressed it was appalling.

“Outer Scorpion Squadron” is the kind of song that would make you wonder, at first, why anyone would want to spend time in this space. I’m not defending that guy’s position, but I can understand someone hearing a song about embracing the horrors of your childhood and staying with the ghosts of those moments forever and finding that stressful and upsetting. The Mountain Goats are not a band for everyone and a song like this one may not be the one you want on a sunny afternoon. This is a heavy song on a list of mostly heavy songs. Use it sparingly, but I think most people will find they do need to use it every now and again.