In one of the best songs they have ever written, the Mountain Goats demand that the moment matters with “Fresh Tattoo.”

Track: “Fresh Tattoo”
Album: Jenny From Thebes

I’ll never forget the day I first heard “Fresh Tattoo.” It blew me away. It still does. I think it’s one of the ten best Mountain Goats songs and a powerful, and, yes, important, message for people who need it. The best Goats songs are part of that category of songs that might be what you need when you need something. This is one of those.

Jenny, the hero of our story and the centerpiece of Mountain Goats lore, decides she can’t keep saving people and decides she has to take action. She has saved people, and that matters, but sometimes you need to stop saving people. But you can save one more.

I love the character towards the end of “Fresh Tattoo” that asks, probably not all that interested, what her tattoo means. She fobs him off. It’s this point where the whole damn thing explodes and we get the mission statement, the declaration, the exclamation, the everything of the whole damn album. This moment will not pass you by, because you have made a choice and that choice will be validated. Remember it by this tattoo.