When I was a young (okay, younger) lad, I tuned in regularly to the assorted musings of John and Hank Green. Judging by their subscriber count, I probably wasn't the only one, and like anything you do as a child, it definitely had an influence on me. Hank's fumblings on the guitar introduced me to the filk, and Crash Course World History with John Green was my introduction to a more nuanced view of the world around me.

None of that has anything to do with this post. What does is a video that John Green posted on June 18, 2007, where he walked through the streets of New York City for one of the very last times before he moved to Indianapolis, as a song that was like nothing I heard before in a way I still can't quite quantify played in the background.

That song was called "Love, Love, Love," and it was my introduction to The Mountain Goats. It came from an album called The Sunset Tree, which was about lead singer John Darnielle's childhood and his fraught relationship with his abusive stepfather.

Now, 12 years after John Green's departure from New York City, and at least five after I first heard the song, I have finally listened to the album as a whole.

Let just skip to the end here: if you're okay with beautiful music telling you dark and terrible things, if you're not averse to sensitive subjects, you should listen to this album. Because it is great. It sounds lovely, and the lyrics are absolutely outstanding. John Darnielle (the lead singer and songwriter of the band and only constant member) is a writer and a poet and it shows because these lyrics are dense and thick with just the right words and I love it.

Soo... songs.

The album opens with "You or your Memory" which is... an appropriate mix of nostalgic, uncomfortable, and nervous. It sets the tone for the rest of the album well as John sings about a night in a cheap hotel against a background of "Saint Joseph's Baby Asprin, Bartles and James, and you or your memory."

The next track, Broom People, is ostensibly about a girl, I think, but serves to set the scene for the rest of the album as it paints a richly detailed picture of what is presumably John's childhood home.

But the album really hits the ground running, for me at least, with "This Year", an immediately catchy tune about a day spent drinking with a girl as an escape from a hellish home against the background of an anthem of determination that is no doubt truly universal: "I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me."

"Dilaudid" may just be about the same girl, but there's no proof. It's a suitably anxious song set in a car about teenage sexuality... I think? There may also be drugs involved. The dark tone certainly doesn't make seem good.

And that dark tone is a contrast to the forced happiness of our next song, "Dance Music," as John sings about escaping from the realities of his home ("...throws a glass at her head and I run up the stairs to take cover") with the aid of his record player ("so this is what the volume knob's for") and... well, guess. The song then jumps back to what is presumably the aftermath of "Dilaudid" as John sits in a car listening to the same dance music "when the police come and get me."

"Dinu Lippati's Bones" is as beautiful as anything else on this album and seems to be a love song. But this is the point where the album gets a lot harder to interpret. I still think it's about finding refuge in music, but... I can't really prove anything. Or be sure of anything either.

"Up The Wolves" is equally undecipherable but a lot catchier. It's probably one of my favorite tracks. Whatever it means, it sure has some great lines. "There's bound to be ghost at the back of your closet, no matter where you live..."

And "Lion's Teeth" jumps back into a fraught, nervous depiction of John's struggle with his stepfather, in this case in a far less literal and more violent manner. It's a deliberately ugly, confrontational song. "There's no good way to end this. Anyone can see. There's just great big you and little old me."

"Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod" addresses more of the same conflict, but from a different, less imagined angle. It also has some of the best lyrics of the album. "And then I'm awake and I'm guarding my face, hoping you don't break my stereo, because it's the one thing I couldn't live without, so I think about that and then I sort of black out."

Don't ask me what "Magpie" is about. I don't know. Same for the song after it.

"Love Love Love" was, as I said, the first Mountain Goats song I heard. And it's still fantastic. Poetic, beautiful, and contemplative, it's about what we do for love. Good and ill. "Snakes in the grass beneath our feet, rain in the clouds above, some moments last forever, but some flare out with love love love."

And finally, "Pale Green Things." A perfect ending to the album, reflecting on what has come before as it closes the circle's with John's receiving the message from his sister that his stepfather has died. "I turned it over in my mind like a living Chinese finger trap. Seaweed and Indiana sawgrass, pale green things, pale green things."

It feels... almost wrong to be reviewing this album. It's clearly deeply personal, sometimes uncomfortably so, something that was probably recorded more for the benefit of the artist than the listener. But at the same time that just adds to the mix of clever language and raw emotion that gives this album its strength and power. It is beautiful. And it's absolutely worth listening to.