https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57T6fMBBIxM

“Sarcofago Live” gets to the heart of what matters to a fan and how other things fall away.

Track: “Sarcofago Live”
Album: Satanic Messiah (2008)

You don’t have to like everything that your heroes like. John Darnielle loves boxing, metal, and Amy Grant. It is possible to love the music of John Darnielle without loving any of these things. I do not love any of those things, especially. I’m not against them, they just aren’t holy to me.

“Sarcofago Live” is a song about a Brazilian metal band called Sarcofago. Wikipedia defines them as an “extreme metal” band. All of their members have outrageous pseudonyms. There is an extended description of their first album cover and the designer who balked at putting a crown of thorns on it. They clearly earn their “extreme” descriptor.

I have never heard a Sarcofago song. I don’t think it’s crucial to hear one to understand this song. I’ve never seen Pinklon Thomas box, but I love “Pinklon.” I eventually saw the movie detailed in “The Lady from Shanghai” but the song didn’t change for me after seeing it. One requires many reference materials (a Bible chief among them) to get all of the references in a Mountain Goats song, but it doesn’t always change the impact.

“Sarcofago Live” finds characters who want to take part in the only thing that matters to them at the end of the proverbial rope. They are in a “concrete room” and they are waiting. They need no food. They need no task. They just need Sarcofago. I am confident that it is good music, for the people who need it. Nothing is purely good or bad, it is what it is for people who find it and need it. There may be no more meta interpretation of a Mountain Goats song, but what fan doesn’t know what it means to wait for the only thing worth waiting for?