“New Britain” opens Full Force Galesburg with a furious panic and a look at someone desperate.

Track: “New Britain”
Album: Full Force Galesburg (1997)

“New Britain” has only been played live a few times. It’s a very typical Mountain Goats song: two lovers have a discussion about their shared reality and tenuous connection to sanity. Honestly, that might sum up the whole damn album Full Force Galesburg. At a live show in New York in 2008, John Darnielle explained the absence through a story about a music video.

Some people got in touch with him and asked if they could make a music video for “New Britain.” He was flattered, so he told them to go ahead with it and it make whatever they wanted to make. He says that he liked the final product, but he thought the lead actor’s haircut was terrible. Now many years removed, he says he still thinks about that and hopes they didn’t take it too hard, but it seems to have damaged the song for him. At that show in 2008 he mentioned that he didn’t think he’d ever played it live again, and it’s only come up one more time after that. It’s a fun song, and what a weird way to have it become more than it is.

On the album version, John Darnielle’s voice cracks and he imbues the character with some desperation. Most of Full Force Galesburg feels erratic on purpose, so it’s fitting that the opening track contains lines like “you’re about to leave again // I’ve learned to read your movements // and I’m learning how to read your mind.” These people are going through something together, as many Mountain Goats characters are, but they’re doing worse than most of them. “New Britain” sets us up to realize that maybe we don’t need to try to sympathize with them.