I Feel So Unconvincing

Father John Misty “The Night Josh Tillman Came To Our Apartment”

Father John Misty describes his new record as a concept album about someone who just happens to have the same name as himself, and has many of the same life experiences. That’s a very clever way to disrupt any suspicion that it’s a “confessional” singer-songwriter record, even though it basically is. It’s also a great way to distance himself from the parts of the record where he comes across badly, like on this track, where he viciously tears apart the personality of a girl he despises but is fucking anyway. His words are deeply misanthropic, but it seems like the intention of the song is mostly to reflect on “his” misogyny, and wonder just how much of his sexual attraction to her is directly connected to his contempt for her. My read on this is that the character – or the songwriter, whatever – wants to think he’s hooking up with her because he hates himself, but the reality is that he thinks too highly of himself and only gets off on feeling superior to women. In this case, he’s going for low-hanging fruit.

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