Pure Comedy in the Morning

Why, Father John, still?

Some 10-verse chorus-less diatribe/Plays as they all jump ship, “I used to like this guy/This new shit really kinda makes me wanna die.” Well, sort of, yes.

I read a good while ago, in the music magazine Uncut I think, that Father John Misty originally wanted to leave Fleet Foxes to write a novel, an attempt doomed to wither and turn into a fully-fledged first solo album, Fear Fun, under this new, assumed identity. There was the beginning of a written work in the liner notes, and it was a fun way of looking at the act of writing, and how each and one of us has to think for ourselves what it is going to mean in our specific case.

Scott Walker. David Crosby. Harry Nilsson. Paul Simon. Sufjan Stevens. Even as remote as an influence as the British story-telling band Pulp, and the quintessential indie-art-pop master Belle and Sebastian come to mind with what Father John Misty is doing. Songs are stories, always, and some tell these stories more eloquently than others. Songs are not meant to be short-stories, nor are they, for heaven’s sake, meant to be novels.

So why’d you do it, Father John Misty? It’s your third record, and still it is hugely over-packed, pseudo-confessional and kind of preaching, even more so than before. I get that if you need to get something off your chest, it is best to let it out and not let it fester. But every song?

No one wants to hear a bunch of angry, bearded, long-haired men screaming about whatever it is that they are angry about before one’s first cup of joe. I mean come on. If I wanted to get up angry I would put on rap music. When Beyoncé was mad at her man, she created her masterpiece, Lemonade, and there is one (okay arguably two, if you count Freedom) angry song on it. And what a song it is! Let’s face it, Jack White should just be crowned king of the collaboration game right now.

And as for the bearded, long-haired men making music, listen to Matthew E. White. You can’t listen to his music without smiling. And that doesn’t make his stuff irrelevant. For months now, my man puts on Gentlewoman, Ruby Man, a collaboration of cover songs with Flo Morrissey, in his car when he drives to work, telling me that he is always in a better mood after hearing Look at What the Light Did Now first thing in the morning. And while my man may be devoid of a beard, he is an angry man by nature, and I am so happy to have introduced him to something that puts a smile on his beautiful face. The way I’m grimacing over his disillusioned contemplations, I’m thinking Father Misty poured himself a tad much johnlennons in his morning cereal.

In my opinion, the Beatles created a whole that surpassed the sum of its parts by miles and miles, and while Father Misty’s namesake Lennon was able to overcome his limitations as a songsmith (that’s right, V, bring it on!) better than the rest of the lot, to the point of quickly achieving the status of a true, authentic solo artist the way the others never really seemed to be able to secure, even he did suffer, from time to time, from the absence of a collaborator who would give a lightness, some feeling of counterpoint, of juxtaposition, to complement his angry, sneering intellect. We all know he was extremely smart, passionate, and artistic, and an all-round genius, but just look at A Day in the Life.

Without Paul, John became an even angrier a man with a guitar, than he always had been. Sometimes he was divine, sometimes he was crass. And vice versa, most definitely. Without John, Paul has never been able to really make his songs work on a deeper level. Paul can do melody, John did substance, and while I know it’s not that simple, and the piano on Oh Yoko! is one of the most beautiful piano intros I have ever heard, I think the division still stands. Of course, George went somewhere completely different on his solo albums, and Ringo, the big enjoyer of life, has done stuff, yes, but he has been the one Beatle who knows how to sit back and have a marvelous dinner. Out of all four, he is also the best story-teller, as can be witnessed on the pivotal documentary series The Anthology.

But back to Father John Misty and his always the same chord progressions and similar melodies and subject matter. Listen to his music for ten seconds and you’ll instantly know it’s him - which isn't, by all means, always a bad thing, to possess a distinctive sound. Now I know my Grand Old Man, Woody Allen, pretty much has three or four different kinds of plots, and he basically makes the same three or four movies over and over, sometimes using even the same kind of dialogue (just check “polymorphously perverse”!), so I understand I really shouldn’t be the one bitching about this, but I don’t know. I’m bored with Father John Misty, and sick of his voice, come the last song of the album. I can’t get into it. I just can’t. His anger and disenchantment just don’t match mine. What can I say, he’s not my angst. He does have a beautiful voice, and he has the gift of story-telling. But I just think David Crosby and Sufjan Stevens do this sort of thing in a more interesting way, the highly produced, rich, psychedelic story-telling, the complex, instrument-loaded, narrative music. Give me 30 Century Man by Scott Walker any day over the tiresome Leaving LA, the above quoted song. My favorite line on Pure Comedy comes from the same long song: She’s like: “Oh great, that’s just what we all need/Another white guy in 2017/Who takes himself so goddamn seriously/She’s not far off.

To seek forgiveness from all the outraged Lennon fans, I give you my humble top five from his solo work. Every one of these songs has an outstanding melody, and while rumor has it that John hated his own voice, and wanted to record dual tracks of his singing, thus making it less thin, I specifically love his timbre, and the pastel color scheme of his sound on these tracks, and as an instrument of love, John Lennon’s voice, I think, has no real rivals.

Six: (because where’s the fun if I don’t follow through on an already established fallacy!) It’s a tie: Whatever Gets You Thru the Night and Nobody Told Me. John at his funniest, and so groovy! Life’s a bitch but it’s okay is what I take out of these songs, and I just love the wackiness and uncharacteristic glee, a rare gem glimmering in these songs.

Five: Jealous Guy. I have loved this song since when I was young and really had no real idea what it was about. Kind of like with Imagine, its power lies in its nakedness, the sadness and melancholy, and the way he can create an ocean of regret and sorrow with the littlest hassle; it is simply beyond me.

Four: Oh Yoko! As stated above, the piano on this song is so beautiful, and I adore the deceitful simplicity of this. I know people, fans of the man and the group, who are so sick already with John’s unending dedication and commitment to his one true love, and while I, too, have had my ups and downs with John’s love songs, I can’t get over how utterly romantic it is, in the end, to have somebody record your love story so earnestly and with such tenderness. In the middle of the night I call your name. So beautiful!

Three: Mind Games. A song that has a special meaning for me. Yes is the answer is a line that should be out there much more.

Two: Another two-parter: Woman and Working Class Hero. Lennon’s two important and all-infiltrating themes. The latter is without a doubt on any music man’s top five Lennon list, and there truly is a piercing, somber quality to his guitar and voice, a disenchantment dressed not in monumental melodic passages or long, complex narrative, but in an almost ascetic feel of a torch song, even if the story isn’t this time about romantic love at all. The former is a song that every woman would love to hear requested by their lover. A simple song, no frills, no secrets, only love.

One: Look at Me, because it makes me cry.

(Yeah, I know I was cheating, really. It’s so hard to pick just five.)