The Ideal Husband

This song finds FJM listing all the bad things that he's done in his life, before concluding that despite his weaknesses, he's ready to settle down and be the "ideal husband." Asked by The Independent what he deems the worst thing on the list, FJM replied: "The big one in the song is telling people jokes to shut them up. That is my biggest and most misleading antisocial behavior. I struggle with contempt for people and I can keep them at arm's length by making them laugh." "I find the happier I become, the less funny I get. But at those Fleet Foxes shows you could not get me to shut up. I was talking between every song just because I was so unhappy."

Josh Tillman (aka Father John Misty) reveals the worst of himself in his songs. Here he's a self-hating wreck who confesses to "telling people jokes to shut them up" and "bringing on unearned attention." Tillman told Q magazine that he was inspired by the fearless honesty of the novelist Henry Miller. "There's a line in Tropic of Cancer, 'We're like two insane people trying to f--k through an iron gate.'" he said. "And I thought, 'That's my album.'"