A narrator considers how to get a very serious message across in “Bad Waves.”

Track: “Bad Waves”
Album: On Juhu Beach  (2001)

We have a price and a time. It’s 1972 and our narrator is staying in a twenty-dollar-a-night hotel in “Bad Waves.” The placement on On Juhu Beach tells us we’re in Asia, even if the Bangladeshi children breakdancing doesn’t. It’s a curious scene, especially with the mention of Waterford crystal in a banquet hall. We’re clearly somewhere expensive and we’re preparing for a revelation from our narrator.

The drone of the recorder really makes this one feel miserable. John Darnielle wavers his voice over the chorus of “the waves will tear us all to pieces,” sometimes pitching his voice upwards to show that this is a difficult expression to get across. The liner notes mention that this narrator wants to tell someone something, but is worried about how the message will be met.

“I will try to gather my strength // I will rest up all week,” they tell us. This is clearly complicated and it’s clearly important. In this expensive hotel with a grand setting, our narrator wants to be sure their audience considers the impact of what they are about to hear. After so much build up, the reveal of “the waves will tear us all to pieces” is shocking.

What are we supposed to make of this? The tone is despondent and the message matches. In the first verse, the narrator considers some boys dancing and says that waves will destroy them. In the second, the narrator says the same will happen to all of us. It’s a pessimistic message, to be sure, but is it what people need to hear? Our narrator seems to feel that way, but they also don’t know if this is going to go over well. Dark, brutal realism about death is not uncommon in the Mountain Goats, but it’s rarely this direct.