“Papagallo” showcases some specifics from John Darnielle’s writing style and ultimately drills in on a beautiful moment.

Track: “Papagallo”
Album: Songs About Fire (1995) and Ghana (1999)

I have grown fascinated over the course of this project by the songs that no one ever mentions. “Papagallo” has never been played live, as far as I can tell, though it’s pretty difficult to prove a negative. It’s not available anywhere, at least, and even the seven-inch it was originally released on, Songs About Fire, may run you close to a hundred dollars if you want to buy your own. The entire single is a little longer than eight minutes long even with four songs on it. It’s just a really small thing and all four songs on it are small parts. The one that sticks with you is “Pure Gold,” for the fun sing-along phrases about a door burning.

You can miss “Papagallo” in that way, but you shouldn’t. In this era John Darnielle was amazingly productive, so it doesn’t mean anything that a song just got released and not revisited. This is still a time where John Darnielle thought he might hang it up eventually. There’s a confidence to this one, though. “It’s hard to grab ahold of some things sometimes // like you need me to remind you” is excellent phrasing, especially with the delivery on the second line to sell it as a joke or a weary reminder of a million shared experiences. One can even forgive the second verse’s triple rhyme of “water,” extreme even for John Darnielle, as that’s clearly a similar joke. The repetition also really sells the image. These are just two people in a singular moment, but if you listen to this one a few times, you can see it, can’t you?