Song You Need: Mega Bog’s portrait of an unhinged jester

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Following Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn post last night, it’s become clear that we’re living in a Joker-pilled world. Even Erin Elizabeth Birgy — the mysterious nomad at the helm of the eccentric art-pop ensemble Mega Bog — is getting in on the action with her new song “The Clown,” the lead single of the group’s just-announced seventh studio LP, End of Everything. The record is produced by Big Thief’s James Krivchenia and due out May 19 via Mexican Summer.

Much like Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker — or Christopher Nolan and Heath Ledger’s, for that matter — Birgy’s “Clown” is a scared, lonely, misunderstood creature with a sinister sense of humor: “Met a young man who said / ‘You are everything’ / And gave me everything / But I really scared him / Because all I talk about with him is / Beheading young men,” she sings in the song’s second verse. But the nuance that’s lost in the questionable portrayals of mental illness presented by the aforementioned Oscar winners is regained in spades in Mega Bog’s four-and-a-half minute abstraction.

Over her own eerie synths and drum machine — as well live drums from Krivchenia, guitars played by Zach Burba and Will Segerstrom, and additional synth work courtesy of Aaron Otheim — Birgy bares the soul of her wounded protagonist in a warm yet chilling vibrato. “So / How do you see me now? / Am I still that clown / You found charming?,” she belts as the instrumental swells beneath her.

“‘The Clown’ is about the terrible, sensual, and chaotic release of merging one’s own multitudes, showing love to the darkness and insecurities, having curiosity about what is beyond presumed perceptions — surrendering to the uncontrollables, while nourishing the small statues of what we do have control over within ourselves,” she explains in a press release.

The song comes with a self-directed visual treatment whose creepy factor rivals that of anything Phillips or Nolan could create. Watch the clip, check out End of Everything’s cover art and tracklist, and view Mega Bog’s upcoming tour dates below.

1. Cactus People
2. The Clown
3. Love Is
4. Don’t Doom Me Now
5. All and Everything
6. Anthropocene
7. Complete Book of Roses
8. End of Everything

May 31 - Brooklyn, NY - Baby’s All right
June 2 - Los Angeles, CA - Lodge Room
August 13 - Glasgow, UK - The Hug & Pint
August 14 - Manchester, UK - YES (Basement)
August 15 - Brighton, UK - The Prince Albert
August 16 - London, UK - The Lexington
August 17 - Brecon Beacons, UK - Green Man Festival