A Funny One is about the endless uphill struggle of a mismatched relationship; in this instance, a songwriter and the person whom he has been assigned, or chosen, to write songs about. There’s an attraction of course, but the relationship is doomed, dogged by misunderstandings. It’s as if they don’t talk the same language - she’s a Vortex, a Mystery Spot (two great West Coast attractions, right there: in Gold Hill, OR and Santa Cruz, CA respectively) - and yet somehow they're fated to be together. The songwriter has finally worked this out and, in conclusion, decided to write one final song: "I’m not wasting our time anymore.” This is, as far as I am concerned, a happy ending. And this very song, A Funny One, is that final song: he is setting them both free and moving on. Perhaps this is weird subject matter for a song, but it was as natural to write as it is to sing. There seems like there might be a link between “a muse” and “amuse” (and that’s what probably kicked the whole thing off: "a funny one"), but there isn’t, at least, etymologically - perhaps the songwriter just took a long time to work that out. It took me looking it up on Duck Duck Go.
A Funny One, co-written by me and David Nagler, was the very first song we recorded for One Last Heist, with his beautiful arrangement heard here. It just had such a blissful summer feel to it. We’d intended the strings to have the solo in the middle but when we got to the mix, we couldn’t manage to make them harmoniously in tune at their entry, so instead I added that Midnight Cowboy-like harmonica part, an overnight inspiration, necessity being the mother of invention. The band is Stéphane San Juan on Drums, Eddie Carlson on bass and David on keyboard and acoustic guitar. Chris von Sneidern added his beautiful backing vocals to David’s: West coast meets East in the cloud. And unlike the first single and title track, One Last Heist, which gave us the record’s theme, this song dictated its feel. It sounds so dreamy, effortless and sun-dappled to me, despite its labyrinthine key changes (only one of which I try to reproduce when I play it solo acoustic), and so we decided to set the accompanying visuals - a video directed by Morgan Narkiewicz - in my back garden, on a very sunny day, among the flowers. I wanted to have a shot of me swinging on a hammock too, but the hammock collapsed with me on it: a quality blooper, never to be seen.
The photo on this imaginary single was taken on an epic and very cold two-day session with Ilya Mirman in Boston, in January of this year when we were up there to see his brother, Eugene, in the live version of Taskmaster. This picture was somewhere in Somerville MA.
My jacket features a patch pertinent to which movie?