Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear
- Written by Amy Finlayson
In October 2013, whilst writing I Love You, Honeybear, Josh Tillman told Rolling Stone: “My creative mandate currently is to write about myself. I have total access to myself, and I can be as honest about myself as I care to be, and as honest about my experiences.”
And that is what he has done with this deeply personal Father John Misty album. It’s an autobiographical concept album about meeting and falling in love with a woman called Emma, who is now his wife. It’s raw and powerful, both lyrically and musically. It takes you inside a man’s deepest fears when he’s confronted by a woman to whom he gives his heart. And it’s beautifully done.
Tillman says that he wanted to write about love without it being sentimental – if there is anyone who can achieve this then surely he’s the man for the job. Fear Fun, his first solo album following the bleak folk of Fleet Foxes, was a psychedelic journey packed full of wit and cynicism. The womanising persona of “Father John Misty” takes you on a trip and you go along with him even though you know it’s dangerous because he’s like some Piped Piper with a wide grin and a Mariachi band. Now we’re still drawn to him but it’s like watching from a distance, like reading a book that moves you. Your heart stirs deeply but you know you’re on the sidelines, this is Father John Misty’s personal business.
The music is sublime, featuring complex arrangements that we expect from Tillman and his producer, Jonathan Wilson. ‘Chateau Lobby #4 (in C for Two Virgins)’ actually does include a Mariachi band. It also features some sublimely erotic lyrics that flow through the album like blood:
“I want to take you in the kitchen/Lift up your wedding dress someone was probably murdered in”
Track five is even called ‘When You’re Smiling and Astride Me’ – and it’s no accident that it’s a gently rhythmic soulful song.
‘True Affection’, a song about love, physical distance and technology, shows Tillman venturing into electronica – which he does with panache. The synths and drum machines are a world away from his usual guitars and strings, but it works to highlight the problems with the technology that we rely on when trying to build relationship. The lyrics resonate with a generation for whom phones and computers are the third person in a relationship:
“When can we talk/With the face/Instead of using all these strange devices”
‘Bored In the USA’ actually features canned laughter – which sounds like it might be weird and off-putting but works brilliantly with a bleak state of the nation song. Thank God he’s got his woman, because the world has gone to shit.
In the same Rolling Stone interview Tillman says: “The album conceptually is about love, about this hilarity I've seen in my life between carnality and divine love. I'm interested in how a human being with all their dissonance is capable of all kinds of profound experiences, whether based in devotion or in self-destruction, and how those two things inform one another.”
He perfectly communicates this juxtaposition in I Love You, Honeybear. It’s sensual, and dark, and light at the same time. It slaps you in the face then cries in your arms, it makes love to you, it worships you and fears you, and most of all, it keeps you coming back for more.