Father John Misty’s sensational single Pure Comedy, off his third studio album with the same title, provides a stunning relevance of the past, present and future. Scorns of gender roles, religion and political leaders fill this one of a kind ballad, with the music video fit to match. Throughout the breath-taking track, Father John Misty – actual name Joshua Tillman – continues to present an incriminating image of humankind which would make the hardest of souls’ weep and repent.
The track begins with a damning analysis of all of our pasts, metaphorically describing how women succumb to eternal domesticity due to a brief conversation about whose turn it was to hunt. It even laughs at the instant regret bought on by the women letting the husbands hunt; “ladies, I hope we don’t end up regretting this.” Stupidly, this gender discrimination endures in our civilisation, remaining relevant for billions each day, as it will for the next hundred years. Furthermore, the ensuing lyrics comedically self-depreciate our existence, continuing to pinpoint how humans not only worship their “risen zombies, celestial virgins, magic tricks”, but also themselves, in total obsession. This hurts both our past and future, brandishing religions past monopoly on education, economics and reform, while also warning of heading towards a celebrity and beauty driven society.
As well as this, Father John Misty critiques the fundamentals of our culture. He begins by diagnosing the faults in both building fortunes at others expense and promoting the money-driven medical industry, and then leads on to lash out at the “goons they elected to rule them”, a lyric which is mirrored in the video visuals by an image of Donald J Trump. And yet, this isn’t him lashing out at our political leaders themselves, or the makeup of our world, but no rather, a direct shot at each and every one of us, for allowing such monstrosities to happen. It highlights how until humanity instigates mass changes; bad political leaders will continue to be immortalised by our lousy judgement, and the world will go on being as unjust as ever.
All while the lyrical spears pierce us, the music video elicits a powerful mirror. It collates various short popular clips that reflect their adjacent lines, such as the aforementioned presidential clip but also contains daunting videos of wildfires, baby animals and lottery wins. Pieced in between all these clips is the scariest backdrop of all; caricatures of our internal beastly selves setting fire to buildings, preparing to eat models and bowing down to microwaves. The video really does laugh at our troglodytic reality.
Despite having us on the ropes, however, the song offers a friendly hand at the final hurdle, finishing with a poignant reminder for all, that regardless of all our flaws, we are all stuck on this rock together; “I hate to say it, but each other’s all we got.”
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