John Darnielle and Rachel Ware harmonize and tell a sweet story well worth hearing in “Going to Port Washington.”

Track: “Going to Port Washington”
Album: Ghana (1999)

Any time you speak in absolutes you end up being wrong, but I think “Going to Port Washington” is the best song from the John Darnielle and Rachel Ware era. There’s kinda nothing to it, but that’s kinda the point. It’s just the story of one person seeing another person and being really, really, really in love. There aren’t as many of those as there are songs about the opposite experience that comes later after some bad times, but even among the happier songs this stands out.

It was originally on The Wedding Record, which was released to announce a wedding. John Darnielle once mentioned that the couple from that wedding is now divorced. You can also piece together the geography from those stories and figure out this is Port Washington, New York, and the Throgs Neck Bridge extends over the East River. Interestingly, it extends to Throggs Neck, with an extra g, but the person who named the bridge spelled it with one g, thus the bridge is forever spelled wrong.

When I think about love songs, I don’t think about “Going to Port Washington.” It is a love song, for sure, but the polish of the thing is what comes to mind when revisiting it. It’s so crisply recorded and the harmony is so perfect. John Darnielle called it the best recording they ever made together and it’s tough to argue with that. The band has evolved and made much more complicated and ambitious things than this, but considered among other output of the style at the time this is the apex. It’ll always be what I think of as “the old stuff.”