The couple in “Warm Lonely Planet” spends a night outside in the rain on the precipice.

Track: “Warm Lonely Planet”
Album: Unreleased

There are a lot of Mountain Goats songs that take place on porches outside of houses in fields. We get a few details about the setting of “Warm Lonely Planet,” where the power is out from a storm and there’s live wires or other danger out in the yard and there’s water coming down all around two people who need to take shelter outside of their actual shelter. My grandparents lived in a house much like this one, in a cow pasture across the street from the childhood home of Johnny Cash. I can’t help but picture it for these two, though I assume the setting is closer to the Colo, Iowa world that was likely in Darnielle’s head when he wrote this song.

Supposedly it was written for All Hail West Texas and didn’t make the album and definitely you can still download it right here on Jon Nall’s website. If you’ve been in a house like this in the hottest months of the year you can appreciate what drove these two to the porch, though we’re left to speculate on the state of the couple. There’s sadness in Darnielle’s delivery, but it’s not rage or misery. “Give me what you know I need” suggests any number of things. It would be a stretch to call this a love song, but we don’t know enough about these two to box it in. Just picture that warm night and the multitude of other nights that got them there.