John Darnielle grounds the universal in the extremely specific in “Alagemo.”

Track: “Alagemo”
Album: Yam, the King of Crops (1994) and Protein Source of the Future…Now! (1999)

You are not likely to experience the exact situation discussed in “Alagemo.” One character laments the loss of another. It’s a loss that’s very specific, as the narrator tells us the other has dedicated themselves to a “religious cult of flesh dissolution.” We’re well outside most people’s experience at this point, but John Darnielle loves to set simple emotions in complex situations. You don’t know this feeling or likely even what it would mean to have that feeling. You do know what it means to have someone leave.

The “reveal” of the situation happens in the first verse. This is somewhat uncommon for a Mountain Goats song. If something surprising is going to happen or be revealed, it tends to be more of a punchline. We often find only at the end that wild dogs are coming to get us or the lie the narrator was talking about was actually much more serious than we might have assumed otherwise. In “Alagemo” we find out quickly that this character isn’t heartbroken (or at least isn’t just heartbroken), they’re in a much more serious situation than that.

Even with the subject matter, John Darnielle rounds out the song with a universal emotion. The language is intentionally mundane as the narrator says that simple elements of nature made them think of the other person, then again, then “a third time.” This is how it goes, be it an unexpected death or a divorce or a religious cult, when someone leaves. You stare into the dirt and you wonder where they’ve gone.