The original in a series, “Standard Bitter Love Song #1” is very silly, very extreme, and very relatable.

Track: “Standard Bitter Love Song #1”
Album: Unreleased

There are a few “official” songs released in the Standard Bitter Love Song list, but the first one never officially came out. You can only hear it on live recordings and I simply insist your first one be this performance in 2007 at Zoop, a benefit event for Farm Sanctuary in New York. The two Zoop recordings are, I think, the best live Mountain Goats recordings, and the crowd really stomps their way through this one on the recording of “Standard Bitter Love Song #1.”

The title’s a joke, but it’s also not. These are songs from the heart of an angry person, made ridiculous by being someone other than them. There’s a lyric in this song about shooting a kite with a shotgun. That’s an image you conjure up when you’re real-deal mad, but also part of you understands that eventually you will not feel this way. It’s extreme, but this is an extreme feeling. Belting it out in a barn with hardcore fans willing to go to a request show? That’s a once (or twice, there are two Zoops) in a lifetime thing.

On that note, because there’s nowhere else to put it, a friend of mine from college went to Zoop II and asked if I wanted to ride with him. I turned it down for something frivolous and friends, let me tell you, if there’s a Zoop III, sell the clothes off your back to get there. Listen to the guy wolf howl in the second chorus of this performance. You can tell it’s special.