A few months ago I briefly raved on here about the Bo Burnham comedy special “Inside” (see: Netflix).
Written and filmed entirely as a one man band during lockdown, the show is an absolutely brilliant expression of contemporary angst, melding skits and songs to create a single whole that sums up what it means to be alive and deeply unsettled in 2021. He’s managed to be funny and tell the truth both at once, and all without leaving the house.
There are a number of wonderful tunes involved (White Woman’s Instagram, All Eyes On Me, et al) and the album is worth listening to, even divorced from the show itself. It’s also had a big impact on the culture: you haven’t had to go far this year to hear kids chanting “Jeffrey, Jeffrey Bezos”.
The thing that really stuck with me though, and that’s been on my “Best of 2021” playlist for months now, is That Funny Feeling, a song about attempting to live your life accompanied by the constant, nagging sensation that things really are going completely to shit in the background and we’re possibly living right at the end of something.
I am, by nature, an optimistic person, but from first listen I’ve felt that there’s a real darkness to this track and he’s been able to put his finger on something that I really wish had been left unfingered, so to speak. I’ve actually had to be a bit careful about when I listen to That Funny Feeling, because it’s beautiful and true and profoundly depressing, in equal measure.
I noticed this week that the song has now been covered by Phoebe Bridgers, potentially completing its passage from “the best song in that beloved comedy special”, to “actual folk music gem of its time”. When people ask why no one writes protest songs any more: well, here it is, and it’s cutting, gentle, angry and sad, and well worth a listen. Very possibly the song of the year, and her arrangement is gorgeous.
If anyone does find themselves getting something out of it, I would strongly, strongly, strongly recommend watching Inside. It’s a brilliant piece of work, even if its author is bearded and sarcastic and deeply millennial.
Great post Bing, though I’m puzzled by your tag’s implication that Father John Misty isn’t already a comedy act…
By his own admission: Pure Comedy.
That’s a great song, but it’s not a protest song. It’s a surrender song, a despair song. Protest songs have to contain the germ of an idea that things can be changed for the better. But it’s funny, too.
Cheers, Vulpes. I had the same thought about whether it’s a protest song; in the end I figured Strange Fruit doesn’t let much light in either. I guess you could argue it either way.
Bridgers’ version is actually a bit more upbeat than the original, so that’s something.
Good point about Strange Fruit. I guess I always thought of that as a Social Comment* song if anything. It’s such a staggeringly powerful thing to have sung about that it almost transcends any categorisation.
*Social comment in the sense of ‘understand this, you evil motherf*cking bast*rds’.
Gosh, I think I’ll put this here for anyone who doesn’t know what we are on about:
Yeah, that’s fair – it kind of stands alone, doesn’t it? The lyric doesn’t really protest, it just coldly observes, and by observation drives the point home in a more effective manner than any thousand angry diatribes might have. All the emotion comes from the vocal.
You could argue that the protest isn’t in the message of the song but in the very act of expression itself.
You could, if you’re a great big steaming ponce like me.
PS. Someone on here said that Paul Simon isn’t a good singer because his range isn’t much. Billie’s range was about three notes… you wanna say she wasn’t a good singer?
It really cost Billie to keep singing it. Talk about a trooper.
Apologies to anyone who already knew, I didn’t until fairly recently: Strange Fruit was originally a poem called Bitter Fruit, written by a Jewish school teacher.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190415-strange-fruit-the-most-shocking-song-of-all-time
Wow,thanks. Genuinely didn’t know that!
I did and I don’t accept his apology.
He discovered Little Steven had already written it.
Talking of songs of despair and surrender, I’m not quite sure why but this song comes to mind. Nothing Ever Happens by Del Amitri. I’m not a particular fan of theirs or anything (sorry Dave) or even 80s pop in general, but this song and the lyric have stuck in my mind since it first came out. It speaks to me about the futility of the world.
It’s probably great and riding the zeitgeist and that, but doesn’t move me as it probably should because the lyric is just “a list of stuff”. I’m possibly doing it a great disservice, and I don’t mean to dump on the thread, but one listen has not convinced me.
In other news, Escher dismisses Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” because it’s just a “list of stuff”.
Next week, he will dismiss The Great Gatsby, A Tale of Two Cities and Lord of the Rings as “just made up”.
🙂
Aah, but AHRIGF is a list of thematically-connected stuff with repetition increasing the impact of each verse, rather than the example above which is just, y’know, stuff.
I thought That Funny Feeling had a very nice tune, but I couldn’t make out half the words due to her mumbly, reluctantly singing in front of the class, style. And where I could understand the words, I didn’t get the references – female Colonel Sanders?
Say what you like about Dylan in those brief couple of years when he was a protest singer, which were over by the time he was about 23, but he had a way of forcing you to hear the words.
I did compose a reply noting that very thing too (the mumbling), which I found detracted from the message, but I went with very politely dissing the content rather than the delivery.
I’m sort of loathe to start explaining the song, because ultimately these things either land or they don’t, but nonetheless….
To say that the list of things in the lyrics in the verse isn’t thematically connected is to miss the point entirely. The song is essentially about trying to distract onself with the absurdities of capitalism while fending off the creeping existential dread of either the climate crisis or your own mental issues (more the former, for my money).
The list is largely of things that are either absurd on their face (trying to heal by meditating using an app, the app needing to be 8K), or which are absurd but we’ve come to accept (buying agitprop materials via Etsy’s online marketplace, the need for a live action version of the Lion King).
“Female Colonel Sanders” is a reference to corporate woke-washing; it’s not much of a stretch to imagine KFC relaunching with a revised and more inclusive corporate mascot, and it’s exactly the sort of thing that would cause a tumult of online activity and argument in both directions, despite being essentially absolute nonsense.
Occasionally he weaves in imagery that is ostensibly healthy and wholesome: “loving parents, harmless fun”, “going for a drive”, but these items are recontextualised by their surroundings as inherently empty: they’re not going to save you from the terrible realisation of what’s ahead, any more than the Pepsi half-time show will.
At the back of the song, surfacing occasionally, is the knowledge of the climate catastrophe into which we’re apparently now inexorably heading (“the whole world at your fingertips/the ocean at your door”, “20,000 years of this, 7 more to go” – the latter a reference to the remaining time on the carbon budget clock).
The entire lyric is structured to elucidate the feeling of attempting to distract yourself with wellbeing or the inane products of what “the kids” call Late Stage Capitalism”, all the while knowing at the back of your head that it won’t help you escape the truth: the titular “funny feeling” that we’re probably all experiencing to a greater or lesser extent.
It’s not entirely surprising it’s resonating with a younger generation who feel very very strongly about this stuff and who are the ones who are going to have to navigate potentially harder times that the ones we’ve enjoyed over the last 50 years.
I love Bob Dylan dearly, but I don’t think this lyric is any less well thought out, poetic or clever than (say) Masters of War, a song which had a profound effect on the youth of the day, but which is incredibly on the nose and occasionally quite clumsy. I certainly don’t believe it contains a line as good as “A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall”.
Per the OP, I also find it notable that the song was composed by a comedian who has never actually performed it live, and that it’s now been adopted by one of the foremost folk singers of the day and her audience.
As I say above, lyrics are like jokes: once you explain them, you drain most of the magic. Nonetheless, in case it helps, there’s an explanation and here’s the full lyric, sans mumbling….
Stunning 8K resolution meditation app
In honor of the revolution, it’s half off at the gap
Deadpool’s self-awareness, loving parents, harmless fun
The backlash to the backlash to the thing that’s just begun
There it is again
That funny feeling
That funny feeling
There it is again
That funny feeling
That funny feeling
The surgeon generals’ pop-up shop, Robert Iger’s face
Discount Etsy agitprop, Bugles’ take on race
Female Colonel Sanders, easy answers, civil war
The whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door
The live-action Lion King, the pepsi Halftime Show
Twenty-thousand years of this, seven more to go
Carpool Karaoke, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul
A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall
There it is again
That funny feeling
That funny feeling
There it is again
That funny feeling
That funny feeling
Reading Pornhub’s terms of service, going for a drive
And obeying all the traffic laws in Grand Theft Auto V
Full agoraphobic, losing focus, cover blown
A book on getting better hand-delivered by a drone
Total disassociation, fully out your mind
Googling “derealization”, hating what you find
That unapparent summer air in early fall
The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all
There it is again
That funny feeling
That funny feeling
There it is again
That funny feeling
That funny feeling
Hey, what can you say?
We were overdue
But it’ll be over soon
You wait
Hey, what can you say?
We were overdue
But it’ll be over soon
Just wait
Ba-da-da, ba-da-da, ba-da-da-da-da-da
Hey, what can you say?
We were overdue
But it’ll be over soon
You wait
Ba-da-da, ba-da-da, ba-da-da-da-da-da
Hey, what can you say?
We were overdue
But it’ll be over soon
You wait
Ba-da-da, ba-da-da, ba-da
Hey, what can you say?
We were overdue
Great contexualising Bingo – and with the words written down it’s clear what they mean. As Vulpes says above, it’s not a protest song.
I stand by my comment on the delivery in the PB clip, which I still think does not do the song justice, and if anything actively does the opposite.
Have another (thematically apt) 2021 gem. Turning into another great year for music.
Good to see a shout for the Manc.Orch. (who don’t come from anywhere near Lancs.)
Also responsible for one of the year’s better music videos (the tune’s not bad either):
Your failings have been noted. But you were at least polite in failure, so here’s a gift.
That is awesome! And reminds me how much I miss experiencing music for the first time via TOTP performances or cool videos on the telly..
Album due out later this week 🔥🤙🔥
THIS IS YOUR COURTESY REMINDER THAT THE SILK SONIC ALBUM IS NOW OUT, THAT IT ABSOLUTELY SLAPS AND THAT THIS MIGHT WELL BE THE ONLY MUSIC WE’RE POTENTIALLY GOING TO AGREE ON THIS YEAR (UNLESS ANYONE ELSE IS SUPER INTO THE GOJIRA RECORD)….
Gratefully accepted. That is marvellous.
I wondered what had become of The Pasadenas…