“Short Song About the 10 Freeway” is just that, but it’s also a look into the distant past.

Track: “Short Song About the 10 Freeway”
Album: Songs for Peter Hughes (1995) and Bitter Melon Farm (1999)

In September of 2016, John Darnielle played a show in Columbus, Ohio and played “Short Song About the 10 Freeway.” He said it was the first song he ever played outside of California. He followed it up with two of the other songs from Songs for Peter Hughes. It seems like it was a cool show.

There’s more to know, here. In 1994, John Darnielle played at a venue in Columbus named Stache’s. You can hear a tape of the 24-minute performance, where John Darnielle sounds very young and closes with the 51-word “Short Song About the 10 Freeway.” Stache’s is closed now and is remembered by some heartfelt blog posts and a brief comment at that 2016 show where John Darnielle says he knows the tape is out there but he hasn’t listened to it.

I tell you all this to make you consider what memory means. The title tells you this is a short song, indeed there are barely 50 words in it. As you listen to 500+ songs on your journey through the world of the Mountain Goats, you will spend very little of it with this one. You’ll never go to Stache’s again and you’ll never hear the Mountain Goats in 1994 again. You will, however, briefly picture a sunset and a person in a car in California and you will experience the odd peace that this image grants you. Rachel Ware’s backing vocals and the deliberate strumming will help you. You will picture this and you will move on, but consider for a moment what John Darnielle saw in this image in 1994 in a bar named after the owner’s mustache. The devil really is in the details.