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Eugene Mirman’s Guide To Modern Life: Julian Cope’s “All The Blowing-Themselves-Up Motherfuckers (Will Realise The Minute They Die That They Were Suckers)”

Along with David Cross, Zach Galifianakis and Patton Oswalt, Eugene Mirman has liberated stand-up comedy from the zany fratboys and sweater-clad neurotics. Mirman’s latest album, God Is A Twelve-Year-Old Boy With Asperger’s (Sub Pop), isn’t representative of a “new breed” of comedy or a supposedly edgy advancement in humor; it’s a collection of smart, imaginative bits that embody the anger, absurdity and awkwardness of everyday life. You might also say it’s full of guffaws. Mirman, who also published a book this year (the mock-advice tome The Will To Whatevs) and regularly appears on HBO’s Flight Of The Conchords, is guest editing magnetmagazine.com this week. Read our Q&A with him.

Juliancope

Mirman: Several months back, I did a variety-show tour with John Wesley Harding, whose stage name came from a desire to hide he was a musician from his students and not a total obsession with the music of Robert Zimmerman. (A lesson for those choosing band names: Be careful, you might doom yourself to decades of poorly thought out critiques and ’60s references.) While on tour, Wes would play lots of stuff for me that I hadn’t heard. Julian Cope‘s “All The Blowing-Themselves-Up Motherfuckers (Will Realise The Minute They Die That They Were Suckers)” was something that I really enjoyed. This song is so catchy and somewhat indefinably kooky. When I listen to it, I think two things: 1) This is amazing; and 2) Why did someone write this? It’s a sort of joyful multi-sided criticism of the clash between cultures, but also, it’s true, all the blowing-themselves-up motherfuckers probably will realize the minute they die that they were suckers. I don’t know if there’s life after death (I actually do know, but this isn’t the place for bragging), but there definitely could be a death moment before your consciousness evaporates when you explode and you’re like, “Oops.”

“All The Blowing-Themselves-Up Motherfuckers (Will Realise The Minute They Die That They Were Suckers)”: