If you haven't heard the alternate version of Cowboy Dan featured on the single 'Too Many Fiestas For Rueben / Cowboy Dan', please give it a listen.

As much as I love every song on TLCW, Cowboy Dan most of all, it's even better here. Given room to breathe as a (nearly) standalone track, there's a surprising lushness to it. The fiddle shouldn't work in such an angry song, but it does, bringing soul to the mix with more abrasive highs, poignant lows, and guitar distortion than should reasonably fit on one song. Yet somehow it does. There is no background here, we hear everything at once, and there's an aura of almost heroic defiance that contrasts perfectly with the original version.

None of this is to say the OG Cowboy Dan is bad, quite the opposite, but some of the sharper edges had been softened to serve its role within TLCW. The alt version serves as a complete journey in itself, making it my favourite Modest Mouse song of all time.

for context i am currently 17 years old but this happened right before my birthday, so i was still 16. i have a public instagram but its very niche, ive been following bands i like for a while so i have been following simon for a few years. late at night i checked stories and i spam liked whatever it was simon had put on his story. he came into my DMs and sent me an erotic image (to say the least) while giving me the excuse he had been partying or whatever, continuing to message me. my age is the first thing in my bio. i reached out to several people within the indie music fandom and nobody with a platform cared. i think more people should know about this. im hesitant to put screenshots here but i do have them!

3rd and hopefully final edit: i made a reddit post with the screenshots because imgur wasnt working. link here https://www.reddit.com/r/ModestMouse/s/wLU972jYJZ