Mustache Man (Wasted)

This funky song is a track from Californian rockers Cake's sixth studio album, Showroom of Compassion. It concerns an issue that has been bugging frontman John McCrea since his days as a youngster when so many of his seniors sported facial hair above their upper lip. He told Spinner why he penned a song about mustaches. "I think people are dealing with mustache issues in our culture," the Cake founder explained. "A lot of people grew up with men around them who had mustaches, and I think it's a therapeutic thing for us to talk about it." McCrea added that he saw the song as a means to put to rights some terrifying experiences he had with the unsightly fuzz as a youngster. "The song was certainly therapeutic for me having grown up in California in the '70s and '80s," he deadpanned. "You rarely see a waxed mustache anymore, but I have a few traumatic memories from childhood, like of dudes who used wax to make the ends of their mustaches into a sharp object. Yeah, it's f---ed up. As a kid, I saw this, and even then, I knew this was such a strange world."

The song's music video was directed by Alicia J. Rose who not only is a photographer but also is an avant-garde accordionist, who records under the name of Miss Murgatroyd. Said McCrea to Spinner: "We wanted a video that was both creepy AND life-affirming. I think we got more than we bargained for here."