In “Orange Ball of Love” one lover finally gives up and gets serious about the confrontation he’s been avoiding.

Track: “Orange Ball of Love”
Album: Zopilote Machine (1994)

There are four “Orange Ball” songs: Love, Hate, Peace, and Pain. “Peace” and “Hate” both have really solid jokes in them and they’re funny songs. “Pain” is, predictably, very sad. “Orange Ball of Love” is more difficult to diagnose. The four songs are tied together only by naming convention, and John Darnielle has said that they aren’t meant to be connected any other way. Rather than comparing it with the other three, it’s better to look at “Orange Ball of Love” as a part of the album Zopilote Machine. It’s a really angry album, which isn’t surprising given songs titles like “Standard Bitter Love Song #7” and “We Have Seen the Enemy,” but “Orange Ball of Love” is interesting beyond the anger.

It opens with some twangy guitar and John’s familiar snarl in the line “when I catch sight of your face.” By the end of the stanza the narrator is trying to find “a good place to hide.” He accuses his target of “wearing a wire.” It goes beyond figurative language to the point where you have to consider that this may be a person confronting an actual enemy. Lots of Goats songs are about lovers in their darkest moments, but the confrontation is rarely this dramatic.

Whether you think it’s figurative or not isn’t really important. The language is severe enough that either works. When the sun sets it sets into a “burial ground.” When it rises it “rears up” and “swallows” the couple. These are people in a standoff and the narrator has decided he’s going to come clean about how he feels about all this. You feel the corner he’s in, even if you’ve never had to accuse someone of giving you a fake name like this guy does.