Two characters consider a delicious treat and ignore the encroaching world in “Orange Ball of Pain.”

Track: “Orange Ball of Pain”
Album: Nothing for Juice (1996)

The four “Orange Ball” songs may not be connected by anything more than their names, but it’s hard not to think about them together. They cover the emotions of the early Mountain Goats well, with two “lighter” songs, one “angry” one, and the predictably sad “Orange Ball of Pain.”

John Darnielle almost whispers the song, similar to his delivery on other Nothing for Juice tracks “Waving at You” and “It Froze Me.” Thematically, they’re not connected (the former is about divorce and the latter is a love song, so, not too connected) but the style is unmistakable. Nothing for Juice rises and falls repeatedly, with explosions like “Full Flower” and “Going to Kansas” interrupting quiet ruminations on when it all went wrong and the times it didn’t, before those other times.

In contrast with the whisper and quiet guitar, “Orange Ball of Pain” opens with some hope. The narrator brings home an unspecified baked good and offers some to another character. “And then the cold sorrow gripped me by the throat” breaks the mood, before some closing lines about the unrelenting nature of snow in the characters’ lives.

John Darnielle specifically mentions sorrow and sadness and the song is called “Orange Ball of Pain.” It’s somber, but it’s largely about eating a delicious dessert. So many Mountain Goats songs stop and relish a delicious fruit or a pleasant burst of natural beauty amid other disaster, but few spend this much time there. Given the other material on Nothing for Juice, it seems likely that even though the diversion is lengthy it may not be enough to carry them through. You should still eat the cake, even if it won’t save you.