In “Cobscook Bay,” the narrator comes to terms with permanent loss and searches for meaning in the birth of baby cows.

Track: “Cobscook Bay”
Album: Isopanisad Radio Hour (2000)

In “Cobscook Bay” the narrator is in Maine, but their friends are in California. The first verse follows the narrator reflecting over a sunset in Cobscook Bay, a part of Maine mostly known for fishing and shipping. They remember Jill, who left though we know not to where, Gail, who fled to Dana Point in California, and a third, unnamed friend, who left with Gail. All three are gone, thus being “alone most of the time these days.” It’s a fairly blunt description of the narrator’s circumstances, though the immediate “you both committed suicide” may be a metaphor or just a dramatic way of saying what “leaving” can feel like to a friend.

If there was any doubt, it’s cleared up in the second verse. The narrator spends half the verse describing the beauty of a cow giving birth and caring for calves. It’s a gorgeous image, and it’s not the only use of cows as stand-ins for perfection in the world of John Darnielle. He doesn’t eat meat, and he waxes poetic about the animal world at live shows. Other than calling them “snow white” there is no attempted description of the cows, which suggests that John believes you’ll just take his word for it that this is a beautiful sight. It works.

The end of the song recalls the beginning, as the narrator is back at sunrise in Maine trying to consider what their friends “falling off that cliff somewhere in California” means. They may or may not be literally dead, but they are gone from their life, which is certainly its own kind of death. One last oddity: this may be the only narrator who has for sure never seen California, the holiest place in the world of the Goats. In that sense, they’re missing out twice.