“Standard Bitter Love Song #5” isn’t really that bitter, but there’s a longing you feel just the same.

Track: “Standard Bitter Love Song #5”
Album: Unreleased

Someone in the room at Munchies in Pomona, California on July 22nd in 1992 recorded this show and that is the sole reason you can hear “Standard Bitter Love Song #5” today. It was a Wednesday. Selena Gomez was born and Pablo Escobar went on the run for the final time that same day. Munchies, which was a small restaurant with a stage in the back room, is gone now and the former site is vacant as of this writing.

If you were there then you’d have heard the Bright Mountain Choir perform with John Darnielle and you’d have heard two of the bitter love songs. There are six, as far as people can reliably say, and no one has ever found #2 or #3. Does that mean they don’t exist or that there aren’t recordings of them? I think it’s equally likely that John Darnielle thought it was funny to create mystery with the naming convention as it is that they just were played at early shows people didn’t tape.

“Standard Bitter Love Song #5” is notably less bitter than most of the others. It’s all in the performance and the harmonies, but I have to think this one stands out because of that one-time element. I know I talk about things like this a lot here, but for a band so focused on physical space and what it means it is an unintended gift that we have these moments where we imagine what it must have been like on that one day in that one place.