As the star-crossed lovers of the album, the couple in “Age of Kings” meets the only end such lovers can meet.

Track: “Age of Kings”
Album: All Eternals Deck (2011)

“Age of Kings” is another of the tarot cards on All Eternals Deck. Every song on the album is supposedly a different card in a supposedly lost tarot deck, and this one must be the Star-Crossed Lovers card. The song opens with the couple hiding in a stone tower, but the line “why should we hide from anyone?” tells you all you need to know about where they stand. They love their love, and that’s honestly fairly rare in the world of the Goats.

The couple agonizes over hiding and protecting themselves in this sad tale. They decry their time as the “age of kings” and “the lost age.” They talk about the sword in “the waiting stone.” They live in fantastical times, but they have a very relatable problem and that problem is about to be solved in a very negative way. You generally don’t want wolves in your hallway, but you definitely don’t want them to be “gaining ground.”

While it’s a fairly straightforward song lyrically, the melancholy delivery and the strings really add some detail. Musically it fits on the album, but it doesn’t have the strong message that a lot of the rest of the tarot cards. What do these lovers want us to know about their plight, beyond its sadness? What, beyond love, has been lost here? For John Darnielle and All Eternals Deck the passing feeling of sadness for lovers from another time is enough, but it may leave some listeners curious for more detail. That said, “felt like God’s anointed // when you didn’t push me away” are some all-time lines, and things like that keep a song memorable long after the first listen.