2016 was a nightmarish year on all fronts, fraught with political, racial, sex-based tensions — as well as marking the deaths of numerous entertainment icons such as Prince, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, and most recently, George Michael. For those not-so-patiently waiting for 2016 to cease, and optimistically grasping at the hope that 2017 will be better, Mac McCaughan — frontman of longtime indie-rock heroes Superchunk — is here to temper your hopes with his ominous new song “Happy New Year (Prince Can’t Die Again).”
McCaughan uploaded the song to his Bandcamp Monday (Dec. 26) with the caption, “Written and recorded Dec 24, 2016 in a moment of trying to look at any possible bright side of the coming new year after the disaster that was this one.”
The acoustic track will have you laughing over lyrics like, “You could say any horrible thing/ And rise to the top of this shit heap” and “So if you still have friends /Raise a glass with them/ Saying, ‘Happy New Year, Prince can’t die again.’” But the laughter may very well turn into tears as the accuracy of these statements begin to set in.
Listen to “Happy New Year (Prince Can’t Die Again)” in its amusingly depressing entirety below.