In a one-sided story, we hear one person get increasingly excited in “Going to Mexico.”

Track: “Going to Mexico”
Album: The Hound Chronicles (1992)

The narrator in “Going to Mexico” cannot help themselves. So many Mountain Goats narrators find themselves in this position. At the start of the song, this one sees a person through a window and really, really wants us to know that they see them. A lot of the early songs repeat like this, but you really notice it in “Going to Mexico.”

Taken literally, this character touches the other character’s hair and is overwhelmed. They experience this feeling several ways, notice the world around them, and then imagine a deeper relationship than they seem to actually have with this person. It’s sung as a love song, but it seems like it’s not a story the other person would tell the same way.

I don’t know if that’s reading into “Going to Mexico” too deeply or not. The more you listen to it the more it becomes the story of someone who thinks they are in a relationship (or at least some sort of semi-intimate situation) with someone that we never get to hear from at all.

“Last Man on Earth” is my favorite song that expresses that same idea, but much less ambiguously. I’m more than willing to be reading this one wrong, but the birds coughing in the trees and the screaming chickens tell me that all is not well as this character gazes through an open window. It’s an interesting trick, if that’s what it is, and I love the cracks in John Darnielle’s voice as this character gets so close to their version of ecstasy.