"Where is Abel your brother?"

I'm blogging on The Mountain Goats' new album All Eternals Deck until I feel like stopping.

When I got into the Mountain Goats, it was at times as if I'd found the Christian songwriter I'd always wanted to find, even though John Darnielle is apparently not a Christian, or perhaps just not an orthodox Christian. I don't know. But the things Darnielle can do with Christian eschatology: the insane hope of feasting in Jerusalem in "This Year," the promise of the last days in "Against Pollution," and so on.

"Prowl Great Cain" is the first song on the album that hinges on a reference to Bible. Its narrator has betrayed a dear friend, and considers himself in light of the ancient brother-killer Cain, and is wandering the earth, feeling cursed. What Cain says in the fourth chapter of Genesis:

"Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."

And the refrain of the song:

and i feel guilty but i can't feel ashamed
prowl through empty fields great cain

As I've said before, I'd love it if more Christian songwriters took their cues from this.