The sample that leads into “Coco-Yam Song” sets you up to expect something fun, but it’s anything but.

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

Kyle Barbour runs The Annotated Mountain Goats, an essential resource for anyone trying to approach John Darnielle’s work and the hundreds of references within it. The annotations for “Coco-Yam Song” talk about what a cocoyam is (a food staple that can be roasted, boiled, or baked), what “figurines of thieves” means (a likely reference to vodou), and why someone would break apart a kola nut (it signifies a meaningful occasion). These footnotes help listeners read the meaning behind the lines themselves, which is especially helpful given John Darnielle’s prolific output and his interest in varied mythology and background material.

The note that’s most interesting, however, is a link to this interview published in Space City Rock. It’s worth reading in full, but the relevant reference for this song is John Darnielle’s quote about samples. The early albums have all sorts of these clips, which are “either to point a listener in a certain direction or to provide stark contrast,” John Darnielle explains. For “Coco-Yam Song” it is a clip of “Always True to You in My Fashion,” a tongue-in-cheek song about a woman accepting gifts from other men but remaining true, in her fashion, to one love. John Darnielle says this one is about contrast, which makes sense given one is a playful description of sexuality and materialism and the other is someone preparing violence after theft.

Our narrator says “I will make them regret // that they haven’t brought my yams back yet.” We could not be farther away from the slightly silly world of “Always True to You in My Fashion,” and it’s fun to picture John Darnielle selecting this clip for just that reason. Your expectations are completely subverted, and what’s more serious than the rituals before a life-or-death response to a “neighboring clan?”