Then the Letting Go

Then the Letting Go
Album	Nothing for Juice
Released	1996
Artist	the Mountain Goats
Length	1:51
Next Track	"Heights"

Then the Letting Go is the first song on the album Nothing for Juice.

Lyrics

Down in the South Bronx
Down home
Saw you walking down the street again 
Saw you looking sweet again

I saw you coming through
I turned my head away from you
Why do you come here
Why do you come around 
Why'd you go home
Why'd you head on home to Rockaway

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song

• "This is gonna be on the next album, it'll be out around June...and this is the first song on it, and, uh, does anybody know who Emily Dickinson was? Yes? No? She was an American poet, and she never left her room. Like, ever. She lived in Northampton, Massachusetts, and one of her better poems, from which this song takes its title from, ends 'This is the hour of lead/Remembered if outlived/As freezing persons recollect the snow/First chill, then stupor, then the letting go'." -- 1996-03-14 - Broadway Kino - Essen, Belgium

• "You could get from the South Bronx all the way to Rockway for a lousy dollar-fifty, but you won't: three days you've been holed up in that lousy flophouse like nobody knows you're there. The news: everybody knows you're there. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. Would you, if you were in our shoes? It was a terrible thing you did. I don't care how long ago it was. It was a terrible, terrible thing." -- Back of CD Booklet

Things Referenced in this Song

• The title of this song comes from this poem by Emily Dickinson.

Live Shows this Song Was Played at

• 1995-04-15 - Underground - Cologne, Germany
• 1995-04-22 - Fast Forward Festival - Dooroosje Club - Nijmegen, The Netherlands
• 1996-03-14 - Broadway Kino - Essen, Belgium
• 1996-11-02 - Gothenburg Radio - Gothenburg, Sweden
• 1997-04-04 - Duke Coffeehouse - Durham, NC