SONG-FREUD: Bear Lincoln's "Revival"

SONG-FREUD: Bear Lincoln’s “Revival”

Welcome back to SONG-FREUD, the only music column in the whole world that goes deeper than a Chilean mine. A pro bono psychotherapy session available for your cathartic pleasure, SONG-FREUD is a public service. It’s good karma to write, and good karma to read.

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Gentlemen, we need to talk. I can smell an existential crisis from a mile away, and yours is easier to spot than Netanyahu’s vomit-inspiring smirk. I know that your spanking-good song “Revival” is about a celebration of youth, renewal, blah blah blah. But I also know that your name is a pun, and thus, everything you do has something meta about it, lurking under the surface like a body builder’s whitey-tighteys. So when you say that all those grumpy old people are getting happy and revived…something else is going on.

Listen, Lincoln Logs, I’m not just a song analyst; I’m a food connoisseur, and I know every restaurant in the Bay Area like I know the names of the ants that have infested my sink. It took me awhile, but I figured out what you’re getting at. You’re not talking about religious experience, the fountain of youth or even taking a much-needed poo.

You’re talking about that bougie ass Revival Bar and Kitchen, in downtown Berkeley. That’s where the old Quaker dude and the bitter mom in your song are headed??? What’s your beef with old people having a good time?

My gut tells me that there’s something else at play, something that Freud describes on page thirteen of Interpretation of Dreams as “self-reflective neurosis;” in other words, you’re projecting your own guilt of going to fancy restaurants onto people your grandparents’ age! Guys, it’s OK. Let’s go to McDonalds and talk about it!