“Matthew 11:14-19” compares the reluctance of a crowd to believe in a savior with a more direct foe.

Track: “Matthew 11:14-19”
Album: The Life of the World in Flux (2009)

There are, as far as I know, only two versions of “Matthew 11:14-19.” There’s the one on The Life of the World in Flux and there’s this live version that John Darnielle opened a solo performance with in New York a few months ago as of this writing. The live version is nearly identical, with the only change being the number of degrees the character turns around. It’s the opening song for that live show, which Darnielle has said before he reserves for songs the audience doesn’t know or hasn’t heard often. It’s a fitting spot for it. He describes it at that show as a song that “maybe two people have ever heard” and says that he picked it specifically as a shocking choice for a solo show, which he does because from his early days performing solo he learned that people usually don’t listen to the first one unless you blow them away.

The verses in the title describe a generation that does not believe that Jesus was the chosen one and they do not believe his messengers. “It takes a crowd to drown a witch,” the song tells us, and the verses similarly show crowds that combine to form a full generation of nonbelievers.

The rest is a little more esoteric. The Claude Rains mention and the bandages are references to The Invisible Man, but the bleeding eyes are something else. Rains played a literally invisible man in that movie, but here we have more of a standard Darnielle character as a monster that’s a stand-in for general opposition.