“Calcutta” is really just a snippet, but it’s got some fantastic imagery and leaves you wanting more.

Track: “Calcutta”
Album: Unreleased

Three years before The Coroner’s Gambit released, John Darnielle played “Baboon” at NYU. It was May of 1997, according to the live recording posted to the Wiki, and as Darnielle led into a second song he said “here’s another one you don’t know.” It’s true that the crowd probably wouldn’t know “Baboon” yet, but they certainly would down the line, but this appears to be the only night you could have ever heard that second song. If he ever played “Calcutta” again, history does not record it. I love these moments because, sure, that’s two “obscure” songs to open with in a show that ended with two heaters the crowd almost certainly knew, but they became very different levels of “famous” in the catalog.

Like a lot of those once-only live songs, “Calcutta” feels unfinished. The images we have are incredible, where our narrator details someone saying the sight of donkeys kicking and braying stirs their own fury and the nearby flowing water has a similar rushing effect. The ending especially doubles down on both sensations. A line like “your eyes were pure poison, but your skin was sweet” is a wild final line, but it’s truly wild to say it’s being sung in the streets by prophetic figures. There’s seeds here of what is to come, but I think the pieces of this one stand up on their own.