Tim Heidecker and Andrew Bird about to perform Heidecker’s ‘Trump Talkin’ Nukes’: Photo: Facebook/Andrew Bird
Violinist and songwriter Andrew Bird welcomed comedian-turned-musician Tim Heidecker to his house for a performance on Facebook Live, whereupon they duetted on a couple Trump-bashing songs together.
Bird has a series of Facebook Live broadcasts called Live From the Great Room, that has become his own little topical videocast of sorts, marrying performances with freeform artist-to-artist interviews, which has seen guests ranging from Jim James of My Morning Jacket to actor John C. Reilly, so far.
On the Heidecker guest spot, Bird and he discussed the crossover between comedy and music and how they interact with each other, the two playing several songs, including Bird’s “Fiery Crash,” Merle Haggard‘s “Okie From Muskogee,” and Heidecker’s “Central Air” from his recent album In Glendale.
At about minute 25:25 in the video performance, they play Heidecker’s “Trump Talkin’ Nukes” from Heidecker’s contribution to the anti-Trump compilation, Our First 100 Days.
“This is like the least funny thing I’ve ever written,” the comedian said. “What made me so mad is I’m 41 … and I grew up with the end of the Cold War thing in my life and that felt like it went away to some degree. And then I was looking at Twitter and of course Trump tweets something — I think it was before the inauguration but it was after he was elected — but it was like, ‘We’re going to increase the size of our nuclear arsenal by 10-fold.'”
That’s when Heidecker thought, “Oh, that’s back.”
And that inspired him to write this song, the perspective being him talking about nukes. This was before all of the news about North Korea threatening to launch rockets at other countries, namely the United States.
The song ends with:
But you can’t put the genie back
In fact it’s a miracle that it hasn’t happened yet
Crazy how it only takes a maniac
Crazy how it only takes a maniac
In the beginning of his pursuit of music, Heidecker focused on the music rather than the words. “For a long time, I didn’t really have much to say lyrically that wasn’t meant to be absurd or ironic,” he explained. “And as I kept making music as a hobby, stuff in my life would creep up to be maybe I could write a song.”
This is not Heidecker’s first anti-Trump rodeo, either. He also contributed the funny, but harrowing ballad, “Trump’s Private Pilot,” to fellow anti-Trump project, 1000 Days, 1000 Songs, which Father John Misty has already covered.
Bird capped the session with a new political tune of his own, as well, bound around our morphing perspective of what it means to be the POTUS, among other things, and led with a tieback to Merle Haggard’s “Okie From Muskogee” excerpt earlier from the session, Bird waxing in the opening verse:
The Okie from Muskogee’s a junkie now
Armed to the teeth with his man and power
Is he high on OxyContin, nearly gone perhaps forgotten?
Check out the full performance of Heidecker and Bird from the Life From the Great Room sessions below.