John Darnielle laments the reality of drug laws in “Fall of the Star High School Running Back.”

Track: “Fall of the Star High School Running Back”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2002)

All Hail West Texas is about specific people. They aren’t all real, but they are specific in the sense that they have names and personalities. John Darnielle’s early work features characters that speak in first person and often talk about the same themes (love, desperation, longing, and the like) so the first album with a full cast is a big departure.

Jenny from “Jenny” shows up in other songs and Jeff and Cyrus from “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton” live again every time the band closes a live show. William Staniforth Donahue is a different sort of character, but still specific. His name changes in live shows, but he’s always the same person. He always plays football well and he always goes to jail. He lives a short life in the two-minute song.

John Darnielle says the song is about mandatory sentencing. The character is based on a person who did time in a Dutch prison for drug possession, ostensibly with the intent to distribute. The real guy was another young person who probably didn’t fit the intent of a mandatory 10+ year sentence for peddling hard drugs.

He refers to the song as “a protest song” which makes sense. It’s also the story of a troubled person who chooses temporary happiness at the risk of all else. That’s a very familiar idea. More of Donahue’s character comes out in the line “people you used to look down on” about the drug dealers he hangs with after he loses his football career. He changes his perspective about the lower social strata, which would be the start of something if it weren’t connected with the end of everything else.