"Pure Comedy" - Father John Misty

A review essay

By: Bobby Van Leer

Father John Misty has become one of the most impressionable writers in music today, unabashed to assert his opinions and views through his songwriting and even his live performances. While many of these tirades and digressions have been unproductive, he has typically found his best voice through his music. “Pure Comedy,” the first single and title track of his upcoming album, presents us with some of his most elegant and thought provoking lyrics to date. Accompanied to this release is an 1800 word essay on his impressions and thoughts behind the album, and a fantastic, yet chilling music video. This review, for the sake of brevity, will not give the song its full justice, so I highly recommend you watch the music video and read his essay for more information and insight.

“Pure Comedy is the story of a species born with a half-formed brain. The species’ only hope for survival, finding itself on a cruel, predictable rock surrounded by other species who seem far more adept at this whole thing (and to whom they are delicious), is the reliance on other, slightly older, half-formed brains,” he writes in his essay. It is both here and within “Pure Comedy” (the song) that FJM makes his views clear on the long-standing debate of nature vs. nurture. “We emerged half-formed and hope that whoever greets us on the other end is kind enough to fill us in,” he sings, expressing the helplessness of babies and their inability to choose their environment or upbringing. Accompanied only by a piano early on in the song, his pace is deliberate and steady, building on each verse in the same manners of “Bored in the USA,” my favorite song from 2015 which explored similar societal topics.

He also makes clear in his essay that he does not wish his views to be seen as adopting a political divergence, presenting everyone as either complicit with the pure comedy of life, or at war with each other over who is to blame arguing that we are all to absorbed within the confines of our own environments unable to see on a more global scale. *It is a rambling mess of thoughts that requires several reads through to pick out his direction, but offers rewarding perspective.

As the song continues to build, FJM adds an array of instrumentation, including a brilliant saxophone part played by James King of Fitz and The Tantrums that erupts beautifully at the song’s climax. The song concludes, leaving us with a sobering verse on the fate of humans who cling to each other and the bubbles in which they live. And in 2017, when many Americans are either rejoicing or rejecting a new era for the country, FJM pushes that we not settle for norms and be complicit in our lives and the world around us.

“Oh comedy, oh it's like something that a madman would conceive!

The only thing that seems to make them feel alive is the struggle to survive,

But the only thing that they request is something to numb the pain with,

Until there's nothing human left

Just random matter suspended in the dark,

I hate to say it, but each other's all we got.”