There are two source materials for “Enoch 18:14,” but it seems to be more about getting lost in general than either one.

Track: “Enoch 18:14”
Album: The Life of the World to Come (2009) and The Life of the World in Flux (2009)

The Book of Enoch is not part of the biblical canon, though it is supposedly written by Enoch, a man who possibly entered heaven alive and certainly, in the text of the Book of Genesis, lived among other characters you might know. We lack the space and I lack the expertise to get into the story of the Apocrypha, but it is unsurprising and fantastic that John Darnielle included what he calls “a bonus track” from the Bible on this album.

The Book of Enoch is apocalyptic, but it’s specifically about the possibility of evil “watcher” angels. The text of the song “Enoch 18:14” also borrows direct text from the video game Odin Sphere, a role-playing game published by Atlus, and Darnielle has told the story about using these lines at a few live shows. I watched him explain this in person once, in great detail, but even there it felt more important that it was important to him than the source material’s actual importance. It feels a little like the Ozzy songs, in that way, where you don’t need to know anything about Odin Sphere, or Enoch, really, you just need to know that it matters to the band. The comparison between this part of Odin Sphere and Enoch is all about the depth of emotion and the desire to embrace darkness. The song comes from there, but it also comes from the ability to get so deeply lost in other worlds when running from that same desire.