Joseph Campbell and the Rolling Stones couldn’t give me a myth
So I had to write my own.
It’s hard to remember how self-serious everything was back in in 2012. Even parody was so far up its own ass, sites like Hipster Runoff made it impossible to distinguish sincerity from sarcasm. Into this world, snoozy sad sack Joshua Tillman created Father John Misty, a fun-loving maniac hellbent on going wherever his body led him, banging women in cemeteries, drinking greyhounds, doing a little too much ayahuasca, smoking everything in sight, until his organs screamed “Slow down, man!” This was different. It was fun! In a world that had been taught to fear fun.
The backstory was preposterous and hilarious. Dude takes some drugs, gets naked and climbs a tree and realizes he’s been wasting his life being boring and miserable so he moves from the pretentious and uptight pacific northwest to a place where milk and honey flow, just a couple states below in sunny Los Angeles.
His performance of “Only Son of a Ladies Man” on Letterman blew minds. There was an independent rock band actually putting on a show. Being funny. Having fun. Performing!
Of course the wild times can’t last. You burn out. Also, he fell in love. But there’s another thing that may have ended the “demonic clown” character that I don’t think anybody’s ever really pointed out: I also blame whatever dumbass intern at Sub Pop created the “Father John Misty Dance Move Bingo!” card and posted it to instagram. First of all, it only has four columns and everybody knows Bingo requires a 5×5 card. Dumb. Secondly, how is an artist supposed to see that and then not immediately feel self-conscious about it? Making fun of somebody’s dance moves can be as damaging as making fun of their laugh. Something that should come natural is now constrained by precaution.
Or maybe not. It’s all an act anyway, right? A “grotesque exercise in aesthetics of rock and roll artifice.” It’s showbiz. Whatever. Never mind.
So anyway, I enjoyed the last album, Chloë and the Next 20th Century, but the two before that had bummed me out, almost as if he’d regressed back to the J. Tillman era of boring self-seriousness. Tillman himself was fully aware of this. In his 10-verse chorus-less song “Leaving L.A.” from 2017’s Pure Comedy, he imagines his Fear Fun fans bailing on him:
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.”
This week I saw Father John Misty in concert for the fifth time. The first time was at Lollapalooza 2013 and it was everything I could’ve hoped for, but every time I saw him after that he seemed grumpy. He always sings his ass off but he didn’t seem like he was having any fun anymore. So this time, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go, but my wife’s recently divorced best friend has a bit of a crush on him and talked us into getting tickets. I’m glad I did.
For the first time in ten years, Tillman once again seemed to sincerely enjoy being on stage and performing. GLC Live at 20 Monroe (a terrible name for a venue) can hold 2,600 people and it was not sold out. Grand Rapids, Michigan is a tertiary market so I know that when a band comes to town, you might not get the chance again. Tillman thanked us for being a nice crowd. Repeatedly. And it seemed sincere? I wouldn’t have imagined that was possible but I think it really was. At the very end, after the encore, as he was leaving the stage, he had a huge, thankful grin (not a smirk) and did the “heart-shape hands” thing that young people do. I was shocked.
But the show was great. There were ten musicians in the band, including a three-piece horn section. They were able to replicate the intricate arrangements from Chloe as well as putting some depth into everything else. They sounded fantastic. The set was a good balance of material, with half of the songs coming from the first two albums and half from the last three. It was so good I started questioning my memory about the previous shows that had left me disappointed. Was it me who had become grouchy or was it him? Am I the cynical one with weird, arcane expectations? Or has Father John Misty turned a corner, no longer grappling with dealing with people’s weird, arcane expectations and just having fun again, doing his thing? That’s what it seemed like Tuesday night. And I’m really grateful I got to experience it.
Sometimes, I forget how dark some of his subject matter is though because I tend to focus on the humor in his lyrics. As we were walking back to the car after the show my wife said she loved it but he makes her sad.
I asked her why.
“Because I’m a therapist!”
