Between bitterly mocking Ryan Adams’ Taylor Swift covers album, fighting with writers on Twitter, continuing to put on amazing concerts on tour, and fielding accusations that the new video in which he makes out with himself is a ripoff, Father John Misty has had quite a week. He’s capping it off with a new song called “The Memo,” a mirage-like country ballad that comments — sometimes bluntly, sometimes obliquely — on the current music industry and media landscape. If I’m hearing it right, he mocks pretentious high art, boy bands, technology, narcissism, and the media’s tendency to focus on infinitesimally minor bullshit. Hear it below.

Lyrics:

I’m gonna steal some bedsheets
From an amputee
I’m gonna mount em on a canvas
In the middle of the gallery
I’m gonna tell everybody it was painted by a chimpanzee
But just between you me
Here at the cultural low water mark
If it’s fraud or art
They’ll pay you to believe

I’m gonna take five young dudes
From white families
Gonna mount em on a billboard
In the middle of the country
I’m gonna tell everybody they sing like angels with whiter teeth
But just between you and me
They’re just like the ones before
With their standards lower
Every concert goer will pay you to believe

Caffeine in the morning, alcohol at night
Cameras to record you and mirrors to recognize
And as the world is getting smaller
Small things take up all your time
Narcissus would have had a field day if he could have got online
And friends it’s not self-love that kills you
It’s when those who hate you are allowed
To sell you that you’re a glorious shit the entire world revolves around
And that you’re the eater, and not the eaten
But that your hunger will only cease
If you come binge on radiant blandness at the disposable feast

Just quickly how would you rate yourself
In terms of sex appeal and cultural significance
Do you usually listen to music like this
We can recommend some similar artists
Are you feeling depressed?
But your feedback’s important
To us

Gonna buy myself a sports team
And put em in a pit
Gonna wage the old crusade
Against consciousness
All I need is a couple winners to get every loser to fight in it
You keep the golden calf
I just need the bullshit
They won’t just sell themselves into slavery
They’ll get on their knees and pay you to believe

It's no longer possible to satirize the media. What it treats sincerely is more absurd than any joke, and we end up the suckers.

— FATHER JOHN MISTY (@fatherjohnmisty) September 25, 2015