On "A Trick of the Light", the first single from Villagers' upcoming full length album The Art of Pretending to Swim, singer/songwriter Conor O'Brien sang about relying to faith in the most daunting of circumstances. It was a song as hopeful as it was melancholic with a music video directed by Bob Gallagher that encapsulated the emotional juxtaposition. Now on "Fool", the follow up single, O'Brien has once again teamed up with Gallagher for a one-take video from the point-of-view of Conor' O'Brien's partner on a particularly doomed date. Much like it's source material, it isn't immediately apparently that there's something wrong. The date proceeds properly enough - a glass of wine, some small talk, but there's a couple sweeps around the room to give the indication that there's something afoot that's more than just nerves. O'Brien's date frequently pulls out their phone to document the evening - and even ignores an incoming phone call from someone else. O'Brien pulls out all the stops to regain his dinner partner's attention - a mariachi band, confetti, even ripping his own heart out during the song's climactic "So here is my bleeding heart, will you be my falling star? Will you take the pain away?" but the date has pretty much already gone off the rails at this point. The fellow dinners are the only indication of a particularly emotional attachment to the proceedings - cheering and trying to hide smiles as O'Brien bleeds out quietly in his chair and the waitstaff try to rouse him. You never get a sense of exactly how many dates in this is - is this a first date? Has there been several. And it kind of colors the whole situation in a way that's borderline comical. O'Brien is all smiles with eyes full of wide-eyed hope even as he's dragged out of the restaurant and has been obstensibly rejected.
The track itself follows a similar if not entirely congruent trajectory. Where "A Trick of the Light" concerned itself with holding on to faith in the midst of, "Fool" treats the notion of faith as kind of blinder or, more aptly, as a sort of sweetener for the uncertainty one constantly lives with. "Cause I'm a fool, love, for the burden of a promise of eternal life in Heaven, of a kind of anesthetic for the journey for which there's no need to worry" O'Brien sings. It's frequently repeated and often after similar lyrics about the not really knowing the certainty of anything. It has the whisper of critique but not much. It isn't until the bleeding heart line that it seems like the song's subject has any particular issue with the way they're living their life. And at the line I had a somewhat epiphanic moment of "Oh it's a love song" before the next line dealt it's blow. "There's money in the morning and I'm looking at my screen failing to accept that there's problem to the scene too, there's a problem" O'Brien post-climax and there's a surprising amount going on in such a muted moment. "Fool" proceeds at more or less the same tempo throughout with a similarly maintained energy but on this verse - the energy slows down - O'Brien elongates the verse, softens his delivery on the repetition of the line "there's a problem". The line leads right into an uptick of energy and the chorus and like the song itself references there's a blink and you miss it quality to the verse.
"Fool" is Villagers at arguably their most pop down to the fact that O'Brien tucks moments of somber realization underneath upbeat melodies. Where "Trick of the Light" highlights the positive life-affirming and life-saving quality of faith, "Fool" subtly critiques its hypocrisy as the song's subject frequently is concerned with later rewards - in this case "the promise of eternal life in Heaven" that they're not all that concerned with what's happening right in front of them.
The Art of Pretending to Swim, the new full length album from Villagers is out September 21st on Domino.
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