Elegy For The Baby Boomer In D
New single and video. Is this Butchie's finest song? Some say yes.
It is with great pride and a dash of anxiety that I present “Elegy for the Baby Boomer in D”.
The anxiety that I feel is based on my desire to do justice to a song that some say is my best (“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ALL THE OTHER ONES?” I always think).
The pride is based on my belief that justice has been done thanks to the help of Peter Murray’s string arrangements, Laena Myers-Ionita’s string performances, string recordings from Ryan Nasci, and Grant James’ stunning video work.
I wrote this song before dunking on Boomers became a meme. I’ve got a lot of love for the Boomers. The music that generation made and championed in their youth shaped my sensibilities as much if not more than the music of my own. The songs had meaning. They stood up for civil rights and in protest of war. They caused actual change. At least that’s the impression I got from watching Forrest Gump.
The Boomers get blamed for a lot things these days, but my criticism falls toward the gleeful packaging of capitalist ambition in liberal artifice. Steve Jobs in Birkenstocks and a turtleneck. It’s like Hendrix remained interesting only inasmuch as how Paul Allen can “kind of play like him”. Meanwhile, as the Chardonnay swirled to the worn down tones of Clapton “Unplugged” on the Bose, the absolute WORST of their generation slipped into leadership roles that have left younger generations pretty well-fucked.
If it wasn’t about peace, it wasn’t about love, and it wasn’t about equality, all that’s really left is the drugs. This is a song that hopes to be proven wrong.
The “Daddy” in this song is not my daddy. It’s our collective daddy. It’s my daddy’s collective daddy. It’s our collective daddy’s mommy’s daddy. It’s my mommy’s collective daddy’s collective mommy. There are many more combinations I could string together to illustrate my point but I think I’ve made myself clear.
For the video I flew out to Detroit to work with the absolute GOAT Grant James. As he took us around to all the different locations I fell in love with the city. I can’t wait to return there when I get to play the Masonic Temple with Father John Misty on May 1st.
Here’s what Grant had to say: “More than making a video exclusively for the song, I wanted to create something that embodied the themes from the new album while using one of the most obsolete mediums that I could find: the Tyco Video Cam. You couldn't control a damn thing on this 90's kids toy which is essentially a pixelvision style pin-hole camera that is extremely sensitive to infrared light...but with a little bit of chocolat and some wild lens flares, we found the imperfect result that yielded some mesmerizing visuals.”
Please share this song and video with someone you know! Love and thanks to you all.
Ian