Video: Mondo Cozmo, ‘WW3’

Kevin Bronson on April 20th, 2022

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Over the years, songwriter Joshua Ostrander — working since 2016 as Mondo Cozmo — has made workingman’s rock ’n’ roll, beholden to influences such as Springsteen, Dylan and various purveyors of anthemic Britrock, often embellished with dense electronics and samples. Mondo Cozmo’s third album, “This Is for the Barbarians” (out last week via Last Gang Records), furthers that aesthetic, celebrating life and all of its open-road dreaming while acknowledging the potholes. World-weary and world-wary, scratchy-voiced Ostrander sings over the bumps, sympathetic to the bruises.

Created during the pandemic — and in the shadow of a loss in Ostrander’s family — “Barbarians” couldn’t help but sound topical, reaching for the hopeful (“Hang On”), celebratory (“Feel Good”) and visceral (“Electrify My Love”) to mitigate a crippling stasis and its residual damage.

But the songwriter could not have known the prescience in the album track, “WW3,” written prior to Russia’s assault on Ukraine. In fact, the song contained a lyric that weighed on Ostrander — one that he had meant metaphorically but was cast in a new light by the conflict. So he solicited guidance, from Springsteen.

“Right before ‘WW3’ was set to come out, I sent the song to Bruce and asked him if the line in chorus might be taken the wrong way,” Ostrander says. “The line was ‘When I was young I prayed for love / Now I pray for a new world war.’ He said if it was possible to change, I should. I re-cut the vocal the morning before I left for tour, and we got it swapped out on the [digital streaming services] moments before it was released.”

The new lyric is “When I was young I prayed for love / Now I pray for the world at war” — although the original appears on Mondo Cozmo’s vinyl, which was pressed long before the release.

The video for the song was filmed by Ostrander’s wife, Aria Pullman, on the beaches of Colares, Portugal.

||| Watch: The video for “WW3”