Father John Misty has returned with ‘Mahashmashana’, one of his most ambitious albums. In his sixth album, the 43-year-old singer constantly moves between the divine and the earthly, addressing topics such as the meaning of existence, mental health (in the song of the same name) or the corruption of humanity. The latter could serve as the main theme of ‘She Cleans Up’, the Song of the Day.
‘She Cleans Up’ is the second shortest song on the LP, just a few seconds longer than the first. What initially attracts most attention is the title. Where is Josh Tillman going to go this time? You press play and, before you get a response, probably the coolest instrumental of Father John Misty’s career plays. It’s dirty, like ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’, but neat.
Written alongside Viagra Boys, ‘She Cleans Up’ is a great satire on the behavior of celebrities (mainly men) and people in positions of power with respect to women. It all begins with a question, developed in the first stanza: What would happen if Mary Magdalene had found out that Jesus was going to be killed and had decided to prevent it? Would Jesus have done the same?
The answer Tillman arrives at throughout the topic is that, probably not. The American artist refers to the 2013 film ‘Under The Skin’ as a symbol of something that horrifies macho men, in contrast to the following stanza, in which he addresses the issue of abuse in Hollywood and figures such as Harvey Weinstein: «What? “At least he got the movie?” he asks.
The song ends on a pessimistic note, implying that, as in most cases, the abuse of power over women always ends the same (“I know how this ends”). Here, FJM proposes both some possible outcomes (“One hundred billion babies born every millennium”) and pure commentary on the topic (“I hope no one messes with the wrong rejected men”).
