song: When You’re Smiling and Astride Me
artist: Father John Misty
album: I Love You, Honeybear (2015)
writer: Josh Tillman

electric guitar: Benji Lysaght
electric bass: Gabriel Noel

" The “aimless, fake drifter, and the horny man child, momma’s boy”… in that song, I had written these first three (…) verses that are fairly general sentiments that anyone can say; anyone can say, “I would never change you, and blah, blah, blah”. But I had found that, since writing these first three verses, in my life, nearly everything that makes me who I am is in contradiction with those types of generalities. So I needed to put something in that song that put something at risk, or put something at stake, for myself. And the “aimless, fake drifter”-thing is, admittedly, this fucking cowboy archetype romanticism, that rambling man, or whatever – it’s horrible, it gives me the jibbies to even say! But that’s part of my horribly embarrassing weakness that I perceive in myself, along the lines of “making out with my brother in my dreams”, or this “man child, momma’s boy”-thing, like I have all these issues I’m hung up on, the mom-thing and all that. So, yeah, there is a lot of, on the surface, this “aimless drifter”-thing, but to perform that song now is so liberating, to look my audience in the face and tell them that." – Father John Misty