“Black Pear Tree” is about a near-death experience and how you picture it when you’re in the moment.

Track: “Black Pear Tree”
Album: Black Pear Tree EP (2008)

John Darnielle wrote “Black Pear Tree” when he thought he was about to die of a heart attack in Sweden. The doctor told him that he needed to let go of the feeling that he had to pay for past crimes. Can you imagine hearing that from a doctor? We’d all like to hear that our problems are not physical, sure, but what do you do with those instructions?

I once thought I was having a heart attack in the middle of the day, watching a movie I didn’t enjoy. It turned out to be nothing, but I had the same experience John Darnielle writes about here, where you suspect you are about to hear final news and then you don’t. “I saw the future in a dream last night,” he says, but also “there’s nothing in it.”

I’ve seen “Black Pear Tree” live four times, both with Kaki King and without. She brings a tremendous amount to the entire Black Pear Tree EP, and her vocals really change the experience of the title track. Both are excellent, but John Darnielle’s voice coming in as background vocals lends to the impact. He lived, as he thought he might not, and he reemerges as a voice behind the story of how he might not have. There are a lot of Mountain Goats songs that get close to these ideas, but few that end with “someday I am going to walk out of here free” that really, sincerely, definitely mean it.