Everything is Boring & Everyone's a Fucking Liar
Lyres - Help You Ann
Hello internet pals of music. Today we’re gonna suggest you listen to this song from the 1984 debut by Boston garage rock heroes, The Lyres.
Those are the words of the great 20th century scribe, Spank Rock. Or rather, the title of the follow-up album of the Diplo-backed party group’s debut YoYoYoYoYo. I liked their first album, it’s posturing and it’s contempt for the culture around it. I own it, and wasn’t even about to sell it last time I did a cull of my collection.
Second album? Great title, particularly because the music on the album is empty and pointless, and that the buzz from being on Diplo mixes and some SXSW performances didn’t translate to further career excellence amid a whole slew of rappers in skinny jeans.
But, Everything is Boring & Everyone’s a Fucking Liar is a wonderfully nihilistic 21st century viewpoint. The world that surrounds us, the natural world of flora and fauna and quiet time in the pursuit of cultivating our shelf life in these biological shells, isn’t the world many of us inhabit. And the weird netherworld many of the population do inhabit is the world that title addresses; and the digital landscape man has hammered together with the greatest gift ever bestowed upon our species, mathematics, has been burnt into a terrible overcooked frittata, scorching the edges of the pan that represents a unified society.
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Let’s be honest with each other for a moment. Yes, the title of today’s edition edition is based on a homophone.
And our song doesn’t really address anything remotely hopeful, or better about the society of nearly a quarter century ago versus the current hellscape we inhabit. In fact, this is cynical and mean in an entirely different way, and it speaks that with a swagger and a switchblade and reminds me of chipped teeth and monthly rates at a two bit motel on the dead end of town.
Maybe the truth is we can’t help ourselves. We’re nasty brutish creatures with flashes of warmth and kindness and altruism but underneath it all we’re all born into the sin of the individual, out for what we want / need at the cost of what it’s worth.
Ha!
Truth is, this is a great song that follows in that wonderful tradition of hard luck and love that Americana writes so well. The Lyres were a great, unheralded American band, and this song is exactly why they should be better known.
(Extra trivia: The Lyres were formed out of the remnants of DMZ, who were featured here before:
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