“Harlem Roulette” is more-or-less a true story, but it’s also just an incredible piece of lyrical craft.

Track: “Harlem Roulette”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

There’s a really interesting version of “Harlem Roulette” that’s worth seeing from a Pitchfork session in 2012 that you can still find online. John Darnielle describes Frankie Lymon’s story and why it led to this song (and one particular YouTube commenter gets really mad at very minor details, as they do) and why that sadness is so interesting. This version is solo, but there’s something about the emotion there that makes it worth hearing even without the depth of the studio version. I challenge you to not feel it in your throat when you hear that version of the line “leave a little mark on something, maybe.”

You don’t need anyone to explain “Harlem Roulette” to you, really. It is the story, more or less, of Frankie Lymon, but it’s also the story of what might happen to someone who might get famous and might burn too bright. You can put that on John Darnielle as a self-insert of a potential fear, but given his obsession with other figures who fit in this trope, I think it’s more likely that the story just appeals to him.

There are five or six lines in “Harlem Roulette” that I want to call out as among the best Darnielle has even written, but none more than “even awful dreams are good dreams // if you’re doing it right.” I think there might be the full story of your Mountain Goats fandom wrapped up in your explanation of that line.