“Lion’s Teeth” serves as a revenge fantasy for people who know that it will have to remain a fantasy.

Track: “Lion’s Teeth”
Album: The Sunset Tree (2005) and Come, Come to The Sunset Tree (2005)

The version on Come, Come to The Sunset Tree opens with John Darnielle saying “this is a hard song for John to play.” You can hear it in his voice when he says it, but you can also hear it in the song. I don’t find myself coming back to “Lion’s Teeth” as much as I do most of the rest of the album. One of my five favorite Mountain Goats songs opens The Sunset Tree, “You or Your Memory,” and it’s largely about the same thing, if through a different lens and at a different time. The song that closes the album, “Pale Green Things,” is even closer to the subject matter, but it looks back at abuse rather than living within it.

I have to assume The Sunset Tree means a lot more to a survivor of abuse. Much of the album feels universal even though it’s written from a specific perspective. The songs of triumph could be about generic triumph even though they stem from one explicit place. The songs of despair, like the revenge fantasy “Lion’s Teeth,” don’t always need to be about what they are actually about. This is why you see couples swaying tenderly to “Woke Up New.” It’s what it is to you, not what it actually is. I find it harder to abstract “Lion’s Teeth” because it’s so explicit. That’s fine, of course, and it makes it stronger for what it is. As with many songs like this I hope that you never need this one, but I am glad it is here if you do.