Seventeen

Bored in the USA
        -- Father John Misty

How many people rise and say
"My brain's so awfully glad to be here
For yet another mindless day"?

I've got all morning to obsessively accrue
A small nation of meaningful objects
And they've got to represent me too

By this afternoon, I'll live in debt
By tomorrow, be replaced by children

How many people rise and think
"Oh good, the stranger's body's still here
Our arrangement hasn't changed?"

Now I've got a lifetime to consider all the ways
I've grown more disappointing to you
As my beauty warps and fades
I suspect you feel the same
When I was young, I dreamt of a passionate obligation to a roommate

Is this the part where I get all I ever wanted?
Who said that?
Can I get my money back?

Just a little bored in the USA
Oh, just a little bored in the USA
Save me, white Jesus
Bored in the USA
Oh, they gave me a useless education
And a subprime loan
On a craftsman home
Keep my prescriptions filled
And now I can't get off
But I can kind of deal
Oh, with being bored in the USA
Oh, just a little bored in the USA
Save me, President Jesus
I'm bored in the USA
How did it happen?
Bored in the USA

https://youtu.be/JODshFyKHuA

Dear Father John,

You got me through the pandemic. 
Locked in my burning attic,
breathing years of dust, treading water
on Zoom, feeling black squares

leak their silence into me like squid
ink into a freeze-dried bloodstream, 
I prayed for someone, anyone, to break 
into a primal scream, pull their hair out, 

dissolve into a rant or at the very least 
a disquisition on the nature of contagion,
human contamination, the fucking nation
exploding under the Unreal Country's

unbelievable "leaders," bands of savages
spewing viral hate into the ether and 
calling it "fact" ... Oh, your songs, your 
dark god and words, your bitter pills and

dreamy soundtrack, 
did it for me : gave form to 
that inner wildfire : poured gasoline 
over despair.

Go listen to Father John Misty. “Bored in the USA” is on I Love You, Honeybear.