258 words about an album that changed my life: I Love You Honeybear

This album made me believe in love. I honestly think the exact moment I went from being a cynic (or as much of a cynic as you can be at age 18) to a romantic coincides with hearing the last lines ‘Holy Shit’ for the first time. I will defend that song as one of the greatest things ever put to paper anytime, anywhere. I got into Father John Misty when he released Pure Comedy, and that album is fucking fantastic. I think it probably appears more intelligent than I Love You Honeybear on the surface, considering it contains the lyrics “metadata in aggregate.” But as I’ve returned to each FJM album, there’s something about this one that grows on me each time. It might be the laugh tracks on ‘Bored in the U.S.A,’ or the self-flagellation and blatant Julian Assange references on ‘The Ideal Husband.’ More likely than not, though, it’s probably because when Father John is the corny and confident stages of love, he really lays it on — he gets a mariachi band involved and starts bragging about how hot his wife is. But as the album goes on and his cracks and start to show, all the schmaltz falls away to leave questions and anxieties about what love is, and if love exists, and why love would exist in such a fucked up world for such a fucked up individual. How is that romantic at all, you ask? Well maybe love is just an economy based on resource scarcity, but what I fail to see is what that’s got to do with you and me!