Father John Misty is the James Joyce of Music

Why do we hold onto nursery rhymes? Why do we remember the fables of our childhood, or absorb the parables of old, or embrace the old wives tales that we somehow take at face value?

I believe we embrace them because they are ultimately understood in the simplest of ways , as the core of the story relates to being a human, or in other words, the way the story always dissolves into pure humanity.  We disguise our greatest lessons in parable and allegory, yet we all understand the lesson when the curtain drops and understand what is to be gained from the telling of these stories. We are looking behind the mystery for the greater human experience captured in the story, the one that connects to us as individuals, the one that connects us all as humans – pure and simple emotions like love, hate, fear, pain, betrayal, and greed.

We are afraid of these emotions and often can’t express them, but when we hear a fable like Little Red Riding Hood, we follow the tacit morals of the story and are reassured by the end, because those core feelings of betrayal and deceit are demystified and the feelings are expressed in a way we all can relate to- through an experience. Most importantly, we were not told directly, “be cautious because there are those that will try to deceive you,” as that often won’t stick. What sticks with us is when we are told a story shrouded in uncertainty with an undercurrent of pure humanity. The core of the story resonates, and we have discovered this through our own participation in the story.

Such is music. We always want to participate in the music. It seems most of us listen to have those complex emotions stripped down to the core- a pure core of either happiness, sadness, grief, jubilation or any of the other megalithic emotions.  And many of us listen to uncover the truths of a song, listening for the echoes of our own lives. We are searching for something to reassure us that others are lonely, others have spent sleepless nights thinking of someone, and others are seeking meaning. We are often afraid to express these feelings, yet just like a parable, a song unburdens us of the weight of looking the emotion directly in the eye,  or having something delivered to us point blank – that’s what a lecture is for, and lectures are difficult to absorb.

So when Father John Misty says in a recent Pitchfork interview, “If music was made by some kind of critical theorist, it would sound like my music,” I get a little wary. As it seems what he is saying is that his music is for the intellectuals who analyze and scrutinize and stand on their soapbox declaring moral superiority. That’s not to say music can’t be full of direct meaning, direct speech, and heavy rhetoric. After all, not everyone just wants inspiration or happiness from music, many seek to be mentally stimulated or to be left in awe by complicated lyrics or sounds. For every poet there is a scientist, and one person’s muse is another person’s bane.

What worries me about this quote and the increasingly esoteric quality of Father John Misty’s music is the way it alienates those seeking both wonder and thought. To be completely honest, I believe most of us absorb when we can actually participate in the discovery, when we can trace the undercurrent of pure humanity underneath, and when we see that the emotion we fear to confront has been so subtly demystified through the beauty of the music.

In a similar vein, I am convinced that James Joyce’s writing is polarizing not because it is esoteric to some and inspiring to others, but because it divides us between those that want to be considered “intellectual and sophisticated” and those that want an honest relationship with the art we engage. To build an identity of sophistication by embracing the cryptic, staggering difficulty of artists like James Joyce when one truly doesn’t connect, or make the discovery of the core humanity underneath, is not only a betrayal of ourselves, but a splendid way of alienating those looking for a genuine connection to the artist.

Father John Misty has in many ways traced a path in the footsteps of someone like James Joyce, a writer known for his brilliant mastery of prose, yet also known for his alienation of so many readers. Father John Misty is also a master, and he has quite the set of pipes. His vocals are stunning, his writing unique and full of florid language and eloquent thought, yet this brilliance has pushed him farther towards polarizing, and perhaps closer to a fixation on his own ego. For a man who has admitted to being very concerned with his public image and the way he is portrayed on the internet (as is revealed in the many fascinating interviews he has done, including the newest Pitchfork article), it seems his newest album is undoubtedly a calculation to drive out farther into the boondocks of indie and folk music and carve out his own niche in the world of unique prose and disorienting narrative that has made Joyce a famously polarizing figure.

I understand that the Father John Misty project is meant as a vehicle for the artist Josh Tillman (a.k.a. J. Tillman) to explore certain hostile themes and curious personas, however, it is kind of interesting to look at the trajectory of his musical output. Father John Misty started out with the amazing album, Fear Fun (2012), which has that perfect blend of wonder and thought that I have mentioned. The lyrics are uncannily brilliant, but the key difference between an album like Fear Fun and his newest album Pure Comedy is the way both the lyrics and music flow together cohesively in Fear Fun while also providing gorgeous arrangements. Whereas most artists make a debut album with the most rebellious energy, raw ideas, and headstrong sounds, then begin to “mature” or make their sound more accessible, often times seeming to shake the young artist jitters for seasoned confidence, Father John Misty has gone in the opposite direction. Fear Fun seemed so relaxed and controlled, an album of restraint and more popular appeal. Since that debut his albums have become more abrasive and full of those bristling themes many artists start with in their careers. Take a listen to one of the best from Fear Fun, “Nancy From Now On“:

Father John Misty’s second album, I Love You, Honeybear (2015), was difficult for me to embrace at first. I was a bit turned off by some of the verbose lyrics and the songs that felt like the “wordiness” was driving the song towards discord-  yet I warmed up to the album after a couple additional listens. I realized the album had too many love songs like “Chateau Lobby #4” and “True Affection” to ignore. The lyrics grew on me, for being both surprisingly sanguine and emotionally resonant.  Like the lyrics in “Chateau Lobby #4”, “First time you let me stay the night, Despite your own rules, You took off early to go cheat your way through film school, You left a note in your perfect script, Stay as long as you want, And I haven’t left your bed since.” Later I found out he had just married and was full of those heady honeymoon emotions, which explains the wonderful melodies on many of the songs. There’s also the classic opus “Bored in the U.S.A”, a scathing song about modern American life that I can only describe as a revelation. Then there’s my favorite song from the album “The Ideal Husband”, which illustrates in patent Tillman adeptness the dark side of his personality and his misgivings about his suitability as a husband. The song has a palpable vitriol to it that makes it intriguing- just take a listen:

The “wordiness” that was a minor deterrent on I Love You, Honeybear became a true impediment for me on Pure Comedy. When the long-winded lyrics begin to drive the song and bring about awkward chord arrangements, difficult melody, and strange inflection, I have trouble following. Whereas in his previous two albums the songs could be traced back to a core emotion or feeling I could absorb, many of these songs feel like lectures masquerading as songs. James Joyce wrote in a stream of consciousness that was a marvel because the prose was so impressive and the cadence at times mesmerizing (even if the content was too difficult to follow), but one major problem I have with Father John Misty’s new album is the stream of consciousness does not come with a good cadence, the hauntingly beautiful arrangements of songs like “Nancy, From Now On” or “Only Son of a Ladiesman” have taken a backseat to the tirades. Listen to a song like “Total Entertainment Forever” and you might understand how the songs verbosity has turned the arrangements disjointed:

In truth I think I just like when Father John Misty gives his music over to feeling. When raw emotion supplants calculation and a “critical theorists” mentality. The fables of our childhood and the parables of our lifetime resonate with us all, poets and scientists alike, because of that glorious simplicity in the end message- the undercurrents of pure humanity. I am still willing to go out on a limb and say that the songs we love the most, the stories we hold onto, are the ones that just ask us to discover our feelings, and our core human experiences. Fear Fun was the best album he has made not only because the songs were a beautiful natural balance between his florid lyrics and musical arrangements making some sort of cosmic take on folk music, but also because they just gave themselves over to emotional resonance, not diatribes or packaged messages uttered so directly the wonder in discovering their human worth is taken out of the experience. Going further, some of my favorite Father John Misty songs are the ones that he has made ironically, like the “Generic Pop Songs” he posted….and then deleted from the web. Thankfully, there’s still this one, which is my favorite – even if he meant it ironically.