Video: Christian Lee Hutson – “Age Difference”

Directed by Nick Slye. From Quitters, due April 1 on Anti-.

Christian Lee Hutson writes poignant songs about characters you may or may not relate to. The narrator of “Age Difference” is sort of a pathetic creeper.

Hiding out in nice apartments, Catholic schoolgirl uniforms,
I think I was suicidal before you were even born.

Hutson says, “There’s a specific type of an older man that I have encountered a lot in LA. The aging rocker who hasn’t had a long relationship and they are the McConaughey-like character who is dating a much younger girl, and they have just stopped progressing.”

But are we rooting for this guy like we did for Wooderson? Nope. The character is self aware enough to realize he’s a man-baby bullshitter, but he can’t help himself.

Do my impression of John Malkovich critiquing food in prison
At first it isn’t funny, then it is, and then it isn’t.

Animator Nick Slye says, “1,100+ individual pencil drawings make up this 5 minute hand drawn dream. Christian’s style of lyricism and melody in ‘Age Difference’ lend themselves to vivid lucid dream-like imagery and create the euphoric feeling of falling fast asleep while listening to your favorite album, waking in a haze only remembering bits and pieces trying to decipher what was real and what was fantasy.”

Alright alright alright.

Video: Christian Lee Hutson – “Strawberry Lemonade”

Directed by Waley Wang. Single out now on Anti-.

Woo hoo, new Christian Lee Hutson! His 2020 album Beginners was one of the highlights of a miserable year.

Warning! This video might make you barf if you have issues with merry-go-rounds…

While many of the best songs on Beginners featured straightforward narratives, “Strawberry Lemonade” is more impressionistic. But even if it’s impossible to decipher a literal meaning out of the lyrics, you can definitely feel what Hutson is putting across.

Everything is an accident
God’s truth is elastic
We sent a man to the moon and back again
Strapped into a trash can.

Hutson says, “’Strawberry Lemonade’ is a series of vignettes about memory, letting go and holding on. I remember talking to a friend, around the time that I wrote it, about the relentless repackaging of 1960’s culture; so some of that ended up in there. […] I want people to feel like it’s okay: we’re all here fucking up all the time; we’re all just learning and living, and it’s going to be all right. I don’t even know if I fully believe that, but it’s the voice I always wished I had in my life.”

Video: Christian Lee Hutson – “Talk”

Directed by Han-Su Kim. From Beginners, due May 29 on Anti-.

As a global pandemic threatens to kill off an entire generation of old people, what better timing for Christian Lee Hutson to release some literal dad rock?

I’m pretty busy
So please forgive me
If I forget to
Not forgive you

I see a lot of my friends struggling to deal with their parents as they get old and weird and their souls are corrupted by talk radio and Fox News. Our folks left us with a lot of their baggage and it hardly seems fair for them to keep piling it on, decade after decade.

I will no longer grieve you
when I have to see you
it’s no use denying
you belong to the dying
And I couldn’t care less
Life’s just a real slow death
Yep, that’s what I was taught

But ultimately Hutson admits, “Okay, so I care a lot.” They’re old. They’ll be dead soon enough. Cut them some slack and try to make the best of the time you have with them. Right?

It won’t be long before our kids think of us that way, if they don’t already. Hopefully they’ll be kind to us and overlook our inevitable, impending kookiness. It’s as tough to be a good parent as it is to be a good kid.

Christian Lee Hutson: web, twitter, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.

Video: Christian Lee Hutson – “Lose This Number”

Directed by Zoe Donahoe and Adam Sputh. From Beginners, due May 29 on Anti.

Wow. So Christian Lee Hutson’s “Northsiders” blew my mind when I first heard it last year. It’s one of those rare songs that feels as if it’s been written directly for you. Like, dude, were you reading my journals from college?

That single appeared as a one-off, but a year later it looks like he has been picked up by Anti- Records, who will be releasing his debut album in May. Beginners was produced by Phoebe Bridgers.

Unlike “Northsiders,” the new single is not specifically about my teenage life, but it’s still haunting and very real. “I think ‘Lose This Number’ is about someone fixating on the past, wishing they could go back and change things,” says Hutson.

Bobby helped me track you down cause
I just saw your name in the paper
You said, “Of course that reminded you of me
Don’t you know that’s how a name works?”

That’s funny. But it gets more serious immediately.

I know you don’t have to forgive me
Hell, you probably shouldn’t
I got scared and I took off
I wanted to try but I couldn’t

Hutson’s gift is the ability to disguise poetic heaviness in conversational lyrics and straightforward, unembellished delivery. I can’t wait to hear the rest of his album.

Christian Lee Hutson: web, twitter, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.