Video: Father John Misty, ‘Bored in the USA’ (live on ‘The Late Show with David Letterman’)
Kevin Bronson on
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We don’t generally post live videos here, but Father John Misty’s appearance Monday night on “The Late Show With David Letterman” was too precious not to share. FJM, aka Josh Tillman, performed the new song “Bored in the USA” with a 22-piece orchestra and a strong dose of his subversive hilarity. The news, of course, is that he has a new album, “I Love You, Honeybear,” coming Feb. 10. Recorded with producer Jonathan Wilson, it’s the follow-up to 2012’s “Fear Fun,” and he calls it “a concept album about a guy named Josh Tillman who spends quite a bit of time banging his head against walls, cultivating weak ties with strangers and generally avoiding intimacy at all costs. This all serves to fuel a version of himself that his self-loathing narcissism can deal with. We see him engaging in all manner of regrettable behavior.” Until he meets a girl named Emma, Father John explains. In fact, in the album announcement, Father John explains a lot about the album, and he says “blammo” a couple times. Maybe you’ll want to read the press release; it’s better than we could do here. There’s a song titled “Nothing Good Ever Happens At the Goddamn Thirsty Crow” too. We can relate.
||| Live: Father John Misty performs Feb. 9 at the Roxy, supported by Guy Blakeslee.
Reading the unabashedly nascissitic press release reminds me of a recent Taylor Swift NPR interview :
Melissa Block : ‘…I am the mother of a 12-year-old girl, and she loves your music. Her friends love your music. You have a huge platform among a very vulnerable, impressionable set of the population. And I wonder if you think about turning your lens outward, turning it away from the diary page, and sending a broader message to girls who would be really receptive to hearing about big ideas and the big world that’s outside.
Taylor Swift : ‘Like what kind of messages?’
prefer my brand of self-obsession at least making an attempt to relate outwardly (esp if attempted on such grand scale), like Scott Walker’s ‘Seventh Seal’ lyrically moving through Ingmar Bergman’s film, or Manic Street Preacher’s ‘4st 7lb’, inner confilct of an anorexic model… we all know what it’s really about.
Misty just sounds like a well orchestrated version of Bart Simpson’s timeless ode to the self ‘I Am So Great’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTxUKRkOoHM
I have been to the Thirsty Crow (even when it was the ill-conceived trucker-hipster-skunk bar) and I can confirm:
NOTHING GOOD happens at that damn place.
[…] ||| Previously: “Bored in the USA” […]