Mease 1
Sarah Mease
Father John Misty: In and Out of Character
I Love You Honeybear is the second album from Josh Tillman released under the name and persona of Father John Misty. This album explores the mix of Tillman and his persona as well as different sound combinations. Released as a “concept album” about himself, the album struggles to clearly define the line between his performance persona and authentic self, at times writing in third person in such songs as “The Night Josh Tillman Came to Our Apartment,” and at times writing personally about his life. Most songs feature themes of love and modern life, and try their best to be ironic or sarcastic. While having many sarcastic moments, the album also has ones of truth and honesty. The album excels when it’s more honest, and starts to drag while he tries too hard to be funny and ironic in the lyrics, often while attempting a more folk sound than is present on other tracks.
Josh Tillman began releasing music in in the early 2000’s, and is most widely known outside of his solo career for his work as the drummer for Fleet Foxes. As Father John Misty he has released two albums, the first being Fear Fun, released in 2012, and now I Love You
Honeybear, which doesn’t suffer any form of “sophomore slump.” On this album there are more songs that appear to be written out of character. On I Love You Honeybear there are songs that definitely stand out, including the title track. Since I like to work through albums slowly, I began listening to the songs that stood out more on the album’s release, and only recently began working through the songs I found to be too folksy or depressing upon first listening to them.
The theme I noticed was that the songs that didn’t seem like they were recorded to be sarcastic are much more enjoyable and fun to listen to than the songs that seemed to be trying too hard to Mease 1 be entertaining. The more earnest songs on the album seem to “jostle for space with songs apparently written in character.” (Petridis, 1).
This is also combined with the fact that much of the album is based on or references
Tillman’s recent marriage. This is an album partly about love, but that also tries to be funny in a way that often comes across in a negative light. The humor can make the album seem at times hard to listen to or uncomfortable. “Tillman is funny, but his humor is driven by meanness and self-loathing.” (Powell, 2). This is especially present on the tracks “The Night Josh Tillman
Came to our Apartment” and “Bored in the USA.” In the first, the singer picks apart all the flaws of an acquaintance, which starts out funny, “I wonder if she even knows what that word means, well it’s literally not that.” Then switches to being less funny and comes across as very negative and mean, although still clever. “ And now every insufferable convo features her patiently explaining the cosmos, of which she’s in the middle.” This song starts out as entertaining, but by the end comes across as just mean and cold hearted, making it a lot less fun to listen to despite the mostly upbeat sound of the music.
“Bored in the USA,” is a song that sounds like it’s going to send an important message, but ends up not quite resonating with the listener because of the added sarcasm and irony. It’s described by NPR as “a scathing takedown of the mindless materialism and overmedicated emptiness that has come to define the lives of far too many Americans,”(Hilton, 1). While I see how the song can be interpreted this way, I don’t think this song quite accomplishes that. This is a song that references many actual problems Americans have, “by this afternoon I’ll live in debt,” as well as general existential dread, is just another song that appears to be trying too hard.
With slowed down and ballad-y music, “Bored in the USA” is enjoyable to listen to, but the lyrics come across as trying too hard to be funny, and ends up sounding mocking. This is Mease 1 accomplished with lines such as “save me white Jesus,” and an inserted laugh track, which is supposed to add irony, or show humor, or something, but which I found just really unsettling. It makes it seem as if Tillman is uncomfortable with being taken seriously while expressing his ideas, or is trying too hard to make us see the sarcasm in his work.
According to The Guardian, “This is all hugely entertaining. There are moments when, if you’re listening closely, the constant lyrical shifts from caustic irony to plaintive declarations of love can really knock you for six.” (Petridis, 2). Rather than finding this entertaining, I think it seems kind of sad. I side more with Pitchfork, who described it in this way, “he pipes in a goddamn laugh track to underscore that his concerns aren't clever. They're clichés worthy of a terrible sitcom, and that ‘boredom’" is like most chronic conditions, a malady of the affluent. So there you have the devastating punch line in "Bored In the USA"'s epic #whitepeopleproblems gag—that joke isn't funny anymore.”(Cohen, 2). Either way, an inserted laugh track in a song that otherwise sounds depressing is a bold choice that didn’t pay off, and demonstrates how
Tillman’s attempts to be ironic and funny can end up making the song not just sound bad, but genuinely uncomfortable to listen to.
The highlights of I Love You Honeybear occur when Tillman is earnestly talking about love and life, usually his own relationship to his wife. This is also often when he lets the “Father
John Misty” aspect slip away, and so does a lot of the effort to be funny, ironic, and sarcastic.
The humor in these songs seems more effortless and less mean, and is much less cringe worthy to listen to.
This is evident in the song “Chateau Lobby #4 (in C for Two Virgins),” where Tillman talks about his relationship with his wife. This song has lyrics that are actually funny without being mean, “We'll have satanic Christmas Eve and play piano in the chateau lobby,” and “ I Mease 1 haven’t hated all the same things as somebody else since I remember,” and are backed by upbeat music with a recurring mariachi band trumpet section. This song is funny and honest without being mocking or mean, and a highlight of the album, and I believe it’s because Josh Tillman is writing more about his real life, and not trying to be the character he has created in Father John
Misty.
Another song that stands out because of its honesty and straightforwardness is “True
Affection,” the most electronic sounding song on the album. With just one repeated verse and chorus, it doesn’t seem like Tillman is trying to hide behind sarcasm or irony in this song.
Although the song can seem kind of out of place on the album because of it’s electronic sound, the honesty pays off, creating a song that sounds great and has some creative and very relatable lyrics regarding modern relationships, “When can we talk with the face, instead of using all these strange devices?”
The same thing happens with a song towards the end of the album, “I Went to the Store
One Day,” which chronicles Tillman’s real life relationship with his wife, from when they meet, quite literally at a store one day, to their imagined demise. Here he drops most of the Father John
Misty act and focuses on more simple lyrics referring to his relationship, this isn’t the best song on the album, but has some beautiful honest lyrics, “For love to find us of all people, I never thought it’d be so simple.” The music and lyrics in this song are simple, which adds to the uncomplicated feeling of the song, but the song can tend to sound a little boring because of this.
The most insufferable, possibly the only insufferable song on the album is “The
Goddamn Thirsty Crow,” which combines the Father John Misty persona with lyrics extremely shrouded in metaphor and a slow paced, folk country feel. The song is allegedly about life on the Mease 1 road as a musician or something cliché like that, but it doesn’t really translate well. Its slow pace comes across more as droning on about an unsure subject, adding to the annoyance I feel when listening to this song. The song has a mostly country guitar sound, but in the middle has a weird
1920’s feel. It feels like a song about nothing, because the meaning is hard to decipher between the slow music, extreme literary devices, and the bland way the words are sung. This song combines the worst parts of I Love You Honeybear, the Father John Misty persona and his attempts to be sarcastic and humorous. It’s just not funny, interesting, or even fun to listen to.
This song is just terrible.
Overall, I Love You Honeybear is an album split in half. While I love most of these songs and find them beautiful, funny, and meaningful, there is a noticeable difference between the songs written as Josh Tillman, and the songs written as Father John Misty. I think the best songs on this album are “Chateau Lobby #4 (in C for Two Virgins)”, because of its funny and cute lyrics and upbeat sound, and “True Affection,” because it’s electronic sound and interesting lyrics. These also seem like two of the most honest songs on the album, and are lyrically very straightforward. The lack the pretension sometimes felt on the album when Tillman abuses metaphors to try to get his point across. The songs that excel on this album are the more honest songs; usually love songs written from the perspective of Josh Tillman, and the ones that fall flat are the more negative and sarcastic songs written as Father John Misty. The songs while written using more of the persona of Father John Misty still usually sound good, but the over the top efforts to be sarcastic or funny are distracting and at times unsettling.
Works Cited
Petridis, Alexis. "Father John Misty: I Love You, Honeybear Review – Beautiful Songs of Unclear Meaning." The Guardian. 5 Feb. 2015. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.
Cohen, Ian. "Father John Misty, Bored in the USA." Pitchfork. Pitchfork, 6 Nov. 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.
Powell, Mike. "Father John Misty: I Love You Honeybear Album Review." Http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20131-i-love-you-honeybear/. Pitchfork, 9 Feb. 2015. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.
Hilton, Robin. "Father John Misty: Bored in the USA." NPR Music. NPR, 25 Nov. 2014. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.