https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqX9puXGR_U

Love is likened to many things, but nothing quite so specific as in “International Small Arms Traffic Blues.”

Track: “International Small Arms Traffic Blues”
Album: Tallahassee (2002)

The first Mountain Goats album I ever heard was Tallahassee. The highs on that album are high, with “No Children” as the obvious standout and a staple of almost every Mountain Goats show for the last two decades. I once saw him start a show with it as he bellowed it from a balcony and then joined the stage. It’s a crazy song on a crazy album designed to show us the depths of the Alpha Couple.

These are the two characters who wander the United States and fall in and out of love through casinos and diners before they settle down and fester in Tallahassee. There are dozens and dozens of songs about them and their love, but we don’t spend much time on the side of the duo that “International Small Arms Traffic Blues” shows us.

“No Children” only hurts if there were good times. The story of the Alpha Couple only feels punishing if you get to see what daylight looks like. This isn’t a positive song by any stretch, but it does show us a lighter moment or two. We see a similar moment in “Game Shows Touch Our Lives” earlier on Tallahassee, but here it feels less like an attempt to save the good times and more like a eulogy. It’s all different degrees of hopeless or angry after this one, so here’s your last chance to say something nice and maybe, just maybe, to mean it.