You can search the postcards in “Source Decay” or you can live in the memory of why they are coming to your house now.

Track: “Source Decay”
Album: All Hail West Texas (2002)

The obvious brother/sister song to “Source Decay” is “Jenny” but it’s at least a cousin to “The Mess Inside.” Both “The Mess Inside” and “Source Decay” wander over geography and use distance and memory to explore what it means to be in one place and think about another one. But we really must leave that there and talk about the Jenny that lives in “Jenny” and a handful of other songs to consider “Source Decay.”

I don’t know if this is a common opinion or not, but I think “Source Decay” is the best song on All Hail West Texas and it’s a personal favorite of mine across the catalog. I love the guitar and I love the delivery, especially how it thuds satisfyingly on lines like “walk the floors a little while.” I strongly recommend the cover by Holy Sons on the official covers album, which gives it a swampy, slower vibe.

The person sending the postcards is Jenny, John Darnielle has said, but also it doesn’t matter. “Source Decay” may be the ultimate example of why this whole exercise is complicated. John Darnielle answered a question on his blog about this song and said that exploring exactly what’s happening and exactly what the narrative tells us is impossible. He says that life doesn’t have one clean line and the exercise of looking through postcards for patterns is the point, not finding what the tapestry says. Jenny’s sending postcards here just like she’s calling or picking someone up on a motorcycle in other songs, but she’s still just part of what’s happening. You can consider the story of “Source Decay” forever, but what you should try to explore is how the events make you feel.