Murderer

Murderer first appeared in September 2003 on a limited ten-inch for Vinyl Films, beside the first version of Silver Rider. Low recorded it again with Dave Fridmann for Drums and Guns, where it is the twelfth of thirteen tracks, with Sparhawk and Parker singing in harmony. Tiny Mix Tapes heard a dreamy drone and pulsing tremolo behind it, Salon found it eerie, like an indie film noir, and Scene Point Blank called it the standout track.

Sparhawk told the A.V. Club that world events shaped it, and that it began in anger after he watched a documentary about a violent Mexican gang, though he hoped the song was bigger than that feeling. It turns on someone who feels justified enough to stand before God as a murderer. To Sojourners he described a person asking God to be used as a tool of His hand, and said that nobody listens to God any more. David Kleijwegt's 2008 documentary You May Need a Murderer takes its title from the lyric.

Live

Setlist.fm logs 327 performances, second only to Sunflower, from its debut at the Logan Square Auditorium in Chicago on 12 December 2003 to one of their final shows, at the High Noon Saloon in Madison, Wisconsin, on 14 July 2022. Steve Adey covered it on Do Me a Kindness in 2017, and Planning for Burial, whose Thom Wasluck conceived the tribute, recorded it for Your Voice Is Not Enough in 2024. The upload in the hypersongs web is an in-studio session for The Current (Minnesota Public Radio), recorded on 30 March 2007, ten days after the album came out, by Sparhawk, Parker and Livingston.