“Rescue Breathing” is a cut track from We Shall All Be Healed that takes us uncomfortably close.

Track: “Rescue Breathing”
Album: Unreleased

John Darnielle has said that We Shall All Be Healed was the first album where he was knowingly writing songs from personal experience. Some of what he wrote was too personal and he wasn’t ready to include those, which includes “Rescue Breathing.” When you consider what did make the cut this can seem a strange statement, but I think this comes from the repetition of hearing those songs again and again. If you’ve heard a song like “Mole” dozens of times you get away from the reality of what happens in that song. The album cuts are devastating and brutal, so what of the ones that are even more personal than that?

Rescue breathing is mouth-to-mouth, a life-saving technique that is referenced here both as metaphor and as literal action where one person brings John Darnielle back to life. “There was no tenderness, no good night kiss,” we hear, just literal, necessary physical action done because it had to be done. We’re in the room for this moment and we get the answer to our question. There’s no emotional distance here. There’s just what happened: the trip to get the stuff and then the thing that happens when you use the stuff.