“You’re in Maya” was the first ever song John Darnielle wrote about himself, but it’s about you, too.

Track: “You’re in Maya”
Album: Unreleased

“You’re in Maya” is, if you’re of a certain mind, “the” Mountain Goats song. It’s unreleased and extremely rare, even among rare songs. It’s autobiographical, from an era where John Darnielle wasn’t writing about himself often. You may still hear someone yell for this at a live show, which I’ll admit I assuredly must have done at some point without knowing any better. But that’s the thing, you can’t yell for “You’re in Maya.” At one live show decades ago, Darnielle’s act of playing it was tied to an ask of if someone would “warm him up” a shot of Old Grand-Dad. It’s a specific thing, not to be taken lightly.

The song speaks for itself, in a way. The chorus is Gaelic, so maybe that sounds crazy, but you will immediately either remember this time in your life or you will recognize it as the right now of your life when you hear it. Every performance is a little bit different, to the point where the last four lines of the second verse get transposed in order half the time, but it always feels the same. This is an era where you play pinball until you don’t want to kill people. This is an era where you wear a coat that was important to your father even if you have complicated feelings about your father. This is where you drink and you hide out in Portland.

At some performances he says the address of the house he was in for the second verse. I went to see it in Portland, many years ago. Being in that physical location could be transformative, but it’s more about the time in your life. You’ll be this person, hopefully briefly, and you don’t need Portland to commune with them again.