SOUNDTRACK: FATHER JOHN MISTY-Fear Fun (2012).
I can’t get over how much I’ve been enjoying this album for the last two years. Father John Misty is J Tillman from Fleet Foxes.
This disc is a gentle folk album with vaguely country leanings. The arrangements are spare and yet the verses and choruses are so great to sing along to. “Funtimes in Babylon” has this infectious chorus: “I would like to abuse my lungs, smoke everything in sight with every girl I’ve ever loved. Ride around the wreckage on a horse knee deep in mud. Look out, Hollywood, here I come.” “Nancy from Now On” has a great propulsive chorus with oohs and tinkling bells and pianos and Misty’s engaging falsetto.
I was introduced to this album by “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” which opens with the super catchy line, “Jeeeeesus Christ, girl.” I love the big crashing drum sound he has here. “I’m Writing a Novel” is a fun romp, with the great line “I’m writing a novel because it’s never been done before.” “O I Long to Feel Your Arms Around Me” introduces a great organ sound. It’s a full song at only 2 and a half minutes.
“Misty’s Nightmares 1 & 2” opens with a slide guitar and turns into a stomping song with more Ooohs and a great chorus. “Only Son of the Ladiesman” has a great chorus with the fun couple: “I’m a steady hand, I’m a Dodgers fan.” “This is Sally Hatchet” has cool guitar blasts and a great bridge.
“Well You Can Do It Without Me” is a countrified 2 minute stomper. “Tee Pees 1-12” is a big stompin’ honkey tonk song with fiddles and slide guitar. The disc ends with “Everyman Needs a Companion” a slow ballad with a great piano melody and a fun to sing along with verse and chorus.
I love the lyrics on this album, especially the song “Now I’m Learning to Love the War” a slow ballad with a great story:
Try not to think so much about
The truly staggering amount of oil that it takes to make a record
All the shipping, the vinyl, the cellophane lining, the high gloss
The tape and the gearTry not to become too consumed
With what’s a criminal volume of oil that it takes to paint a portrait
The acrylic, the varnish, aluminum tubes filled with latex
The solvents and dyeLets just call this what it is
The gentler side of mankind’s death wish
When it’s my time to go
Gonna leave behind things that won’t decompose
In addition to all of the great music on here, the CD packaging is fantastic with that great cover, done in a cardboard gatefold sleeve including two huge books full of words and drawings and lyrics and everything. I’m really looking forward to his next release.
[READ: September 14, 2014] Grantland #10
Despite my being in the middle of reading several other things, I was looking for a short article to read the other night and grabbed my Grantland 10. And, of course, once I started, I couldn’t stop. I put everything else on hold and blasted through this issue.
And so all of my loves and hates are the same with this issue. I never know how anything they talk about nearly a year ago turned out, which stinks. And yet I get so wrapped up in the writing that I don’t care. I’m not sure what it is about the writing for Grantland that i enjoy so much. It is casual but knowledgeable. Often funny but not obnoxiously silly. And I suppose that now I feel like I’m in on all of the secret stuff they talk about so I’m part of the club. I fear that if I were to ever go to the website I would get sucked into a black hole and never emerge.
I often wonder how they choose what goes into the book. This issue has some new writers and the surprising absence of some regulars. I wonder what went on there. And as always, the book could use some editing and maybe actually listing the urls of the links that were once in the online version. But I think I’m talking to deaf ears on that one.
This issue covers October-December 2013 (that’s ten-twelve months ago! Some of this stuff feels ancient!)