“Alpha Chum Gatherer” didn’t need to make the album, but it’s still such a wonderfully gross set of images to behold.

Track: “Alpha Chum Gatherer”
Album: Unreleased (recorded for Tallahassee, but not included on the album)

Just about exactly ten years ago as I write this, I heard “Alpha Chum Gatherer” in a sweaty room in Chicago. It’s the same performance you see in the video up top. I’ll never forget that show because it was the best version of “Wild Sage” I’d ever seen, but it’s also notable as one of a very few times you could see the outtake “Alpha Chum Gatherer” from the Tallahassee sessions. The song ultimately didn’t make the album because the band didn’t feel like it fit anywhere along the narrative.

Tallahassee is the story of the Alpha Couple, a story you can hear elsewhere in this collection. John Darnielle introduced this song with a joke asking where these two would come across a boat. That’s certainly a good question, but we can’t let that get in the way of the image of one of the Alphas waking up hungover and going fishing just to borderline (or not-borderline) punish their partner with their day’s catch.

I have said this a dozen times in this series, but Darnielle is heavily on the record that the ones that aren’t on the albums aren’t on there for a reason. “Alpha Chum Gatherer” fits the theme of Tallahassee, obviously, but maybe the best reason it’s an outtake is that it isn’t necessary. You know this already about these two. When one of them asks the other “what are we going to do,” it’s both a big question about everything and a simple one about fish guts. This has to come after the two have confronted the problem but before they’ve resolved not to solve it. In that space, a literal bloody mess may be gilding the lily.