One thing everybody knows about Josh Tillman (otherwise known as Father John Misty) is that he is self-indulgent. All of his previous releases featured lyrics that discuss his ideas of himself, his impact on other people and of course how brilliant of a character he is. However, his 2018 album God’s Favourite Customer develops a new perspective on his personality. Despite the initially self-absorbed title of the album, much of this record deals with a particularly difficult period for Tillman’s mental health where he truly was “on the straits.” Having lost those close to him, he is now forced to look to a God that he no longer believes in for help.
The title track of the album, ‘God’s Favourite Customer’, discusses Tillman’s religious upbringing impacting him in the future as his life comes to a stand-still. Much of the record was written during and refers to a 2-month period where Josh was living in a hotel trying to deal with some particularly challenging mental health and marital issues. In the album’s most captivating rhythm, ‘Mr. Tillman’, he uses the perspective of a hotel concierge to sympathise with him during his breakdowns. ‘Oh, baby, don’t be alarmed, this is just my vibe’ lets us know that Tillman has regarded himself as a character in the previous albums and that we should be used to it as his listeners. Father John Misty beautifully exemplifies his personal defeats and problems with an ever so Truman Show-like complex.
Tracks like ‘Just Dumb Enough To Try’, ‘The Songwriter’, and ‘Date Night’ delve into Father John Misty’s constant self-awareness and the harm his life has lead him to. Isolation from his wife following a deposition is narrated in ‘Just Dumb Enough To Try’ in such a raw manner that listeners can hear the yearning for love and comfort that Tillman craves in his life once again.
However, perhaps the most gut-wrenching track might be the fifth on the album – ‘Please Don’t Die’. Tillman discusses his suicidal tendencies ruining his relationships with those he loves and the pain-staking chorus, ‘You’re all that I have so please don’t die’, is a small insight into the worry that others feel for him as his life reaches a crucial point and he stands on the borderlines of insanity and acceptance. The album maintains a slower and less excitable tempo throughout when compared to previous releases, but despite the significance of that, it serves a purpose of allowing us into the melancholy of his mind.
Looking past the fact that some of his previous releases haven’t all been too popular with listeners, partly because of the egotistical ideology he had created of himself to his fans, God’s Favourite Customer may be seen as Tillman’s most brutal and honest release since his debut in 2003. He talks of failure, his Martyr complex, his dissociation from reality, and opens up about his battles with mental health, and all of the beautiful musical features alongside the lyrics leave us with one conclusion as the end of the album is reached – ‘We’re Only People (And There’s Not Much Anyone Can Do About That)’.