With a haunting vocal effect, John Darnielle shows us someone very far out on their own in “Nova Scotia.”

Track: “Nova Scotia”
Album: Letter From Belgium (2004)

There are three songs on Letter From Belgium, the second single from We Shall All Be Healed. The title track sees the cast of addicts from the main album collecting disparate items and holing up in their own version of quarantine. The final track, “Attention All Pickpockets,” serves as connective tissue between this period and The Sunset Tree. Both are significant songs, and of all the non-album tracks, I think “Attention All Pickpockets” is among the best.

As far as I can tell, even in the usual resources, no one has said anything about the song between the two on Letter From Belgium. “Nova Scotia” is an oddity in that respect, but it’s also just a strange song. The effect placed on John Darnielle’s voice leaves the narrator sounding distant, like we’re hearing them over radio transmission. The percussion comes in with a thudding, plodding effect that mimics walking through snow. There’s more than a full minute of outro after the second verse, which leaves us with a lot of time to ponder the final words this character says.

The second verse is worth quoting directly. “Listen,” they tell us, “everything I love I will devour // and bury the bones down in the snow.” Even if it weren’t on Letter From Belgium this would help us place this one. It calls to mind the narrator from “All Up the Seething Coast,” who similarly tells us to stop trying to rely on hope. There is no happy ending coming for the person who wants to just “let me go, let me go” in “Nova Scotia.” The choice to lead this into “Attention All Pickpockets,” where the characters have false hope, makes that realization especially bleak.