“I hate to say it, but each other’s all we’ve got.”
Two days after one of the largest protests in history, crooner Father John Misty released the latest in a long line of politically-charged songs to come out this election season. Musically, it’s fairly typical FJM fare, with an understated piano accompanying his simple vocals, but lyrically and visually is where it makes a statement.
Complete with truly creepy line drawings, the video highlights the absurdity of American politics and the human race in general. Like the most recent Gorillaz track, “Pure Comedy” utilizes cartoonish imagery to make a dark point about the state of the world today – but where “Hallelujah Money” merely alluded to Trump in a larger discussion of the poisoning influence of greed, “Pure Comedy” dresses neo-Nazi symbol Pepe the Frog in Trump gear and sandwiches his face right in the middle of the music video. Maybe it’s not what America needs right now, or maybe it’s hopping on the protest-song bandwagon without doing anything to end the need for protest, but whatever your political leanings, it’s a profound skewering of human flaws – which is something we have always needed art to do.
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