That style of writing finds its most powerful expression in a song called “Animal Mask.” It’s a story song. One wrestler is in a battle royal, a chaotic brawl where there are 20 or more guys in the ring, all trying to throw each other out. He sees another wrestler in trouble. A bad guy is pulling at that wrestler’s mask, trying to reveal his face. Our hero goes to help, and a new tag team is born out of nothing: “I came to you, hands wrapped in adhesive tape. That was when we were young and green, in the dawning hours of our team. Some things you will remember. Some things stay sweet forever.”
It sounds like a love song, and so I ask Darnielle if that’s what it is. Darnielle confirms my suspicions, but it really goes deeper than that. “It’s about the labor and delivery room,” he tells me. “It’s about seeing your son for the first time. I mean, this is the sort of thing I would usually be coy about, but I’m proud of that song. I wrote it with my son on my lap. It’s about how they’re about to show you your son’s face and you feel this profound instinct to protect — to say, ‘Nobody gets to see you.’ It’s very intense. That’s the understatement of the year, to say it’s intense to be in the delivery room. But that’s what it’s about, that bond that you are forming a tag team, you are forming an alliance. And if you believe in a tag team when you’re watching wrestling, a good one, they feel like brothers. Even more than brothers. They feel like partners. And the word partner gains a depth that you might not have had from before.” Since Darnielle told me about what the song means, I haven’t been able to hear it without crying.
That style of writing finds its most powerful expression in a song called “Animal Mask.” It’s a story song. One wrestler is in a battle royal, a chaotic brawl where there are 20 or more guys in the ring, all trying to throw each other out. He sees another wrestler in trouble. A bad guy is pulling at that wrestler’s mask, trying to reveal his face. Our hero goes to help, and a new tag team is born out of nothing: “I came to you, hands wrapped in adhesive tape. That was when we were young and green, in the dawning hours of our team. Some things you will remember. Some things stay sweet forever.”
It sounds like a love song, and so I ask Darnielle if that’s what it is. Darnielle confirms my suspicions, but it really goes deeper than that. “It’s about the labor and delivery room,” he tells me. “It’s about seeing your son for the first time. I mean, this is the sort of thing I would usually be coy about, but I’m proud of that song. I wrote it with my son on my lap. It’s about how they’re about to show you your son’s face and you feel this profound instinct to protect — to say, ‘Nobody gets to see you.’ It’s very intense. That’s the understatement of the year, to say it’s intense to be in the delivery room. But that’s what it’s about, that bond that you are forming a tag team, you are forming an alliance. And if you believe in a tag team when you’re watching wrestling, a good one, they feel like brothers. Even more than brothers. They feel like partners. And the word partner gains a depth that you might not have had from before.” Since Darnielle told me about what the song means, I haven’t been able to hear it without crying.
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