Father John Misty: God's Favorite Customer (Sub Pop) Review | Under the Radar Magazine Under the Radar | Music Blog for the Indie Music Magazine
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Father John Misty

God’s Favorite Customer

Sub Pop

Jun 01, 2018 Father John Misty Bookmark and Share


Back when he was plain old J. Tillman, the man who reinvented himself as Father John Misty churned out records at quite a pace. The production line slowed since he dropped the earnest folk shtick and turned into cynical, satirical jokester Father John Misty in 2012, but output is ratcheting up. The gap between albums has narrowed from three years to two to one. So welcome to the stage God’s Favorite Customer.

In case you’ve not listened for a while to the three other Father John Misty records, he starts with a handy Netflix-style recap. The first three tracks neatly capture previously ploughed furrows. “Hangout at the Gallows” is a more personally apocalyptic spin on 2017’s Pure Comedy, “Mr. Tillman” is the ever-so-knowing entertainer in action, and “Just Dumb Enough to Try” goes full-on heart-baring. Basically, Tillman is providing a mini-greatest hits interlude for his Father John Misty persona.

Once settled in, it becomes clear that musically this is craftsmanship over experimentation. Relying on guitar and piano to form the backbone, aided by rotating flourishes of anything from bells to harmonica, God’s Favorite Customer offers a mix of haunting folk ballads (“The Palace”) and denser, more rocking tracks (“Please Don’t Die”).

Thematically, Tillman finds himself reflecting on emotional hardship and his inability to manage life. There’s honesty on the title track as he tries to trade long abandoned belief in God for help from the almighty. The chorus finds him singing “Speak to me/Won’t you speak sweet angel/Don’t you remember me?/I was God’s favorite customer.”

Then on “The Songwriter” he slips into the perspective of his wife Emma, wondering what it is to be on the end of his emotional outpourings. He concludes, “What would it sound like if you were the songwriter/and you did your living around me?/Would you undress me repeatedly in public/To show how very noble and naked you can be?”

For all the laying bare, the glibness of something like “Mr. Tillman,” a rambling journey through a hotel breakdown, can appear off-putting. With Tillman, it sometimes feels like a binary choice as he launches into such escapades: embrace his destructive winking persona or recoil?

It’s a false dichotomy though. Father John Misty the character shouldn’t distract from Father John Misty the songwriter. The obvious truth is they go together. God’s Favorite Customer is a 10-track demonstration that when bleakness and fun can be married this well, wanting it any other way is churlish. (www.fatherjohnmisty.com)

Author rating: 8/10

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Larcanber
June 2nd 2018
5:28pm

“God’s Favorite Customer” I like that kind of name for an album for Father John Misty. I think it’s a nice touch for his music to name an album like that.

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June 9th 2020
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July 13th 2020
7:32am

‘This was the greatest day of my life’

: fathers, Sons and Pebble coastlineFacebookTwitterFacebook MessengerPinterestEmailprintPEBBLE beach, Calif. everybody has that magical place, The spot their eyes need to visit or their foot needs to step just once before they take in their last breath.

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We booked the trip a few times, Maybe even three days to weeks, to cancel, Our daily schedules too chaotic, the real world tossing up a roadblock.

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too many people wait too long, the moment missed, The could possibly memories replaced by lifelong regret. We all have special places, those that make us smile, Or make us chuckle, Or develop us cry. Pebble Beach is all of them for me. Open at Pebble destin beach weddings, reminds me of this place’s magic, Makes me think of relatives and memories and a proud, determined, Flawed man I still miss regularly.

Aloysius Vincent Charles Pietruszkiewicz to make it simple universally, He was simply Wish died seven issue, Two years after he got to mention this:

I brandished Pebble Beach with my three boys. He passed that gift because of his three sons, Who then handed it on to their sons and daughters. becoming an adult, clearly there was always a game on, An event to go to.

my dad, this coming summer, Played in a Thursday night golf league with folks I’ve known forever adopted relatives, My minor League coach, His ongoing friends from two streets over. His swing was lightweight, despite the fact so was he, a short, Round man whose takeaway was so slow you can get an oil change in the time it took to get from first movement to contact.

Both of my brothers played golf, as well,actually. which has how life works, How habits are formed, How passions are burned into your very being a son and sibling seeking to like what their father and brothers liked, seeking do what their father and brothers did.

I loved baseball and the game of basketball, Watched football every Friday night and Saturday and Sunday morning in the fall and winter. actively playing golf, if, Captured me in a different way.

I still remember the moment when it really turned, When the attraction took form. begin, A nothing but 30 years ago. Open initially. Nearly the second the transmit went off the air, I left into the front yard, A cut down 5 iron and limited number of plastic golf balls in my hand. i’m 11. I was out there trying to replicate Strange’s swing. A few went right away. A few veered right onto Cypress saint, Causing a car or two to hit the brakes pretty fast to avoid the golf balls they did not know they were plastic heading for their windshield.

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Don’t go past parallel.

Keep that left arm straight away.

obstruct a little.

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