Father John Misty‘s new animated video for “Things It Would Have Been Helpful to Know Before the Revolution” suggests that despite our best efforts, our protests may be all for naught.
The stop-motion video, directed by Radiohead and Run the Jewels collaborator Chris Hopewell, follows a downcast protagonist as he wanders through a post-apocalyptic landscape, which looks something like a cross between Mad Max and WALL-E. Picket signs echoing the song’s lyrics pepper the desolate terrain, such as, “No big thing to give up the way of life we had.”
The protagonist encounters a menacing gang of rats who freeze as the sun sets, and later stumbles upon a band of cockroaches singing and dancing by a fire. All the while, he continues collecting decrepit cell phones and putting them in his shopping cart. He finally strings them together and plugs them in to reveal a massive illuminated sign that reads “PHONES 4 CHEAP.”
The video for “Things It Would Have Been Helpful to Know Before the Revolution” offers a sardonic and beautifully bleak look at our future, just like the rest of Misty’s latest album, Pure Comedy.