THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
Josh Tillman’s third album under Father John Misty is a sobering piece of work that delves deep into the absurdity of humans
As his shamanic alter ego Father John Misty, Josh Tillman positions himself as a keen-eyed observer of human behaviour. Never one to run short of wry witticisms, Misty has over the course of his previous two solo records given us songs with titles like Funtimes in Babylon, Now I’m Learning to Love the War, Bored in the USA and Holy Shit. Now with his latest studio offering, aptly titled
Pure Comedy, he’s operating at full throttle as a top-shelf satirist. His speciality? Human foibles and follies in all their glory.
“The comedy of man starts like this,” he begins on the opening title track. “Our brains are way too big for our mothers’ hips/ And so Nature, she divines this alternative/ We emerged half-formed and hope that whoever greets us on the other end/ Is kind enough to fill us in.” Accompanied by simple piano tinkling, he trundles through a swathe of topics from human biology and sociology to religions and politics. “Comedy, now that’s what I call pure comedy,” he sings before suggesting that, ultimately, we’re all “just random matter suspended in the dark”.
The saxophone-embellished Total Entertainment Forever follows with biting ruminations on today’s technological advancements and how we, as a species, are being entertained to death (“In the New Age we’ll all be entertained/ Rich or poor, the channels are all the same … Not bad for a race of demented monkeys/ From a cave to a city to a permanent party”). Ballad of the Dying Man addresses our obsession with social media (“Eventually the dying man takes his final breath/ But first checks his news feed to see what he’s about to miss”) while the autobiographical 13-minute
Leaving LA finds him taking a self-deprecating jab (“Another white guy in 2017 who takes himself so goddamn seriously”).
Elsewhere there are tracks whose titles could easily double as a poem or short story title — Things It Would Have Been Helpful to Know Before the Revolution, So I’m Growing Old on Magic Mountain, Two Wildly Different Perspectives and When the God of Love Returns There’ll Be Hell To Pay. On the latter he flat out rebukes God for having the audacity to create us humans: “Oh Lord, maybe try something less ambitious the next time you get bored.”
Throughout the album’s sprawling 75 minutes, Misty hasn’t held back once. Sure, he comes across as excruciatingly holier-thanthou for the most part, but then he counteracts it with plenty of self-effacement and the ability to laugh at himself.
Dripping with irony and back humour, Pure Comedy is an essential listen, especially in the current political climate and the direction mankind is headed. Even if you couldn’t care less about its didactic, profoundly nihilistic lyricism, the record’s warm ‘70s sonic styling and lush instrumentation alone are enough to warrant your attention.