“Cry for Judas” spends a little time wondering if just rewards are coming or not.

Track: “Cry for Judas”
Album: Transcendental Youth (2012)

“Cry for Judas” is one of those songs you can absolutely enjoy without really considering too deeply. The Mountain Goats don’t have “singles” the way you’d normally think of the term, but this is a single as sure as anything the band has ever written is. It’s got to be the catchiest song with the word “baphomet” in it, at least. It’s got a music video, too, which is rare. The video is outside the scope of what we’ll talk about, but it’s one of my favorites.

You’re statistically very likely to hear this at a live show because it’s so damn catchy, but you may need to stop for a second to think about what the “this is what you get” line means, or, indeed, who it is even directed to in that moment. John Darnielle once called the messaging of “Cry for Judas” “naively hopeful.” We want people to feel bad when they make us feel bad, but that’s not something you can bank on.

The question of the narrator is an interesting one here. It’s not unique to “Cry for Judas,” but the best Mountain Goats songs have a narrator that seems to insist on one thing but obscures what they themselves have done. Here we go even deeper into the messenger and the recipient. Who is going to come out ahead, in the end? Who is going to get what they deserve, but also, who gets to make that call?