From the opening line, “Luna” tells us that Luna Vachon’s story will not be an easy one to hear.

Track: “Luna”
Album: Beat the Champ (2015)

If you’re of a certain age and if you watched wrestling at a certain other age, you might remember Luna Vachon. She was a wrestler, which may not be shocking for Beat the Champ, but she was especially memorable for her persona and her look. She exists for me in a space most wrestlers of the early 90s exist, which I can almost place these memories but not quite. I must have seen her dozens of times or more, but all of it is just outside where I can access.

Luna Vachon is the Luna in “Luna,” which details her life, or at least one part of it. She saw a lot of success, comparatively speaking, but her story ends with a housefire that destroyed much of her memorabilia and then a tragic overdose. “Luna” follows the wrestler tracing “big names” in ash as the fire dies down. The song stops short of what comes after and suggests an eternal next step with the repetition of “and ride // and ride // and ride // and ride.”

John Darnielle says Beat the Champ is about what happens to people who wrestle more than it is about wrestling, and in “Luna” he finds a way to talk about both. We see only a moment or two of Luna Vachon’s life and we only know it’s her from the title, but once the connection is made the song is something completely different. The experience is specific, but the feeling it creates is general. This is one of the last moments, but it’s only that in retrospect. In the moment, maybe this is the start of everything turning around, but as you might know, sometimes, it’s not.