When you run out of people to count on, you look to the stars for hope in “The Day the Aliens Came.”

Track: “The Day the Aliens Came”
Album: Come, Come to the Sunset Tree (2005)

The last track on the companion album to The Sunset Tree is called “The Day the Aliens Came,” which John Darnielle introduces in an aside to Peter Hughes and John Vanderslice as also being, probably, called “Hawaiian Feeling.” You can unpack that any number of ways. The last line of the liner notes says “respect to the flying man: we’ve got your back.” You can also unpack that, though I am going to assume, almost assuredly incorrectly, that it’s a reference to the anthropomorphized version of your courage called Flying Man from the Super Nintendo game EarthBound. I’m sure that’s not it, but that’s sort of the space you find yourself in on this side of The Sunset Tree. You’re a boy and you must deal with forces that seem too big to deal with.

The narrator of “The Day the Aliens Came” imagines they can get away from this. It’s a fantastic notion that supernatural forces will come blast away your problems, and, indeed, your memory of your problems, but that may be all you have in the end. Mountain Goats albums don’t always end with exuberance, but the ones that do tend to end with this explosive, overstated joy. It’s a great place to leave and it’s delivered with such fury and such hope. We couldn’t be in more different territory than The Sunset Tree with “Pale Green Things,” but this isn’t about reflection. This is about closing your eyes in the middle of it and calling to anyone, anywhere, to come save you. I’m really reaching with the EarthBound reference, but if you know John Darnielle and you know the game, can’t you almost see it?