Beat the Champ is about professional wrestling, which was an avenue of escape for me when I was a kid.

Wrestling was low-budget working class entertainment back then, strictly UHF material. It was cheap theater.

You had to bring your imagination to the proceedings and you got paid back double. I wrote these songs to re-immerse myself in the blood and fire of the visions that spoke to me as a child, and to see what more there might be in them now that I'm grown.

- John Darnielle, Durham, NC