Mac McCaughan “Happy New Year (Prince Can’t Die Again)” (2016)

Merge Records
Buy: Bandcamp (NYOP)

Holy shit. Just holy shit. Thank you Mac McCaughan, scion of Merge Records and Superchunk (amongst other bands). A highlight of the end of the season, with a sentiment that I can fully subscribe to. This song is a miracle of modern technology. Likely at no other time in our world can a song be written, recorded and released with such quality. As stated on Mac’s Bandcamp, “Happy New Year (Prince Can’t Die Again)” was “Written and recorded Dec 24, 2016 in a moment of trying to look at any possible bright side of the coming new year after the disaster that was this one.” I give you just the first bit here, as it gets less oblique and more acutely political as the song goes on… and I feel it best to be discovered, as you are just smelling the orange in the first verse, now you need to peel it back and taste if for yourself.

It was a year when everybody died
and it was a year when the adults and children cried
for the loss of their hope, for the loss of their youth
and next year might be better, but I don’t see any proof.

and this year it seemed like nothing really mattered
you could say any horrible thing, and rise to the top of this shitheap
So if you still have friends, raise a glass with them
Say it “Happy New Year, Prince can’t die again.”

I am not moving on to New Years songs… I don’t separate them anyways, they all can make a Christmas mix in my book. However, this New Years’ song is so poignant and of-the-moment, that it may never end up on a mix. “Happy New Year” might burn brightly for the next month, only to be extinguished by the suffocating shitstorm of 2017. But for now, let it burn. Let it burn.

Bottom Line: Mac McCaughan, damn.

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