“New Matha” is a user manual for people who need to be reminded it’s all worth it.

Track: “New Matha”
Album: Unreleased

If you were in St. Louis in 1998, you could have seen John Darnielle play “New Matha” at The Rocket Bar. He also played “The Doll Song” that night. As near as I can tell, that was (maybe) your only chance to hear “New Matha” and it was (definitely) very near to your last chance to go to the The Rocket Bar, which closed about six years later and seemingly never became anything else.

That night at The Rocket Bar people talked through the set. I have sometimes talked through parts of the set. You shouldn’t do this, but sometimes you’re in the back of the bar (or, nowadays, bigger venue than a bar) and you see someone you haven’t seen since the last Goats show. You shouldn’t do it, but I get how it happens. You wouldn’t have had any way of knowing you were seeing something unique. “New Matha” is a song about making art because you love to make art. The irony of the only recording of it being in front of a crowd in St. Louis that had to be hushed is too obvious to really go deep on, but I had to at least mention it. It’s a beautiful little song that really stuck with an old friend of mine that loved the band as much as I do. “If you ever get money, print books” is about as sincere and as sweet an opening line as exists. May we all aspire to be worthy of it, even if we sometimes talk through the quiet parts.