Local punk mainstays Tacocat unveiled the third single off their forthcoming record This Mess Is a Place yesterday. Titled “The Joke of Life,” the very meta song tackles the fact that we’re currently in a situation in 2019 where things are so ridiculous that you can’t even make fun of them.
Frontwoman Emily Nokes elaborates on "The Joke of Life":
"I love how this song turned out. This is also one of my favorite concepts on the album—the joke is that the joke is already a joke. You know when something is so unbelievable, in a bad way, that it can’t even be satirized because irony falls short of the real thing? Like we’ve entered a twilight zone of perpetual horror and now we’re just … adapting to it. Because what else are you going to do?"
In typical Tacocat fashion, the lyrics are clever and the beat is bouyant. “Got a memory like a three-eyed fish/ Devolve to adapt, adapt to forget/ Think hard enough it’ll swallow you up/ So just sip your lies from your sippy cup.” The song comes with a fun video made up of a variety of clips of the band goofing off and generally having a good time because they're right, what else are you going to do?!
This Mess Is a Place is out May 3 via Sub Pop and follows 2016’s Lost Time. Tacocat previously shared the singles “Hologram” and “Grains Of Salt.” They’ll play the Showbox on Saturday, June 8.
Watch the video for “The Joke of Life” as well as their 2016 KEXP in-studio performance below.
The song tackles the concept of power structures within society
