Father John Misty is the persona used by singer Josh Tillman. His music blends soft rock and chamber pop with touches of psychedelia and folk.
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Apart from operating as Father John Misty, Tillman is also a prolific producer and songwriter. He’s collaborated with Beyoncé, Lana Del Rey, Post Malone, and others.
However, timeless pop melodies exist beneath the indie veneer of measured aesthetics and Dylan-like mythology. “Real Love Baby” is lathered in vintage reverb, and it’s the kind of song Bruno Mars might sing. But Tillman had another pop star in mind.
An Old-Fashioned Love Song
Tillman wrote “Real Love Baby” for Lady Gaga. In 2017, he revealed the song’s origin to DJ Zane Lowe. “I was writing a bunch of songs for [Lady] Gaga and that was one of them. It just sounded so good with me singing it I just couldn’t part with it,” Tillman said.
Our hearts are free
So tell me what’s wrong with the feeling
I’m a flower, you’re my bee
It’s much older than you and me
He added, “We were hanging. It was, like, five in the morning, someone handing me an acoustic guitar and I’m just like, ‘What are hands.’ We had so much fun. Mark [Ronson]—just watching him produce, it was amazing.”
Tillman contributed to Gaga’s fifth studio album Joanne. He co-wrote “Sinner’s Prayer” and “Come to Mama” and played drums on “Diamond Heart.”
I want real love baby
Ooh, don’t leave me waiting
I’ve got real love maybe
Wait until you taste me
I want real love baby
There’s a world inside me
Got the preacher’s music
Just if for a minute and gone
The experience of writing for another artist opened a path to vulnerability for Tillman. He told Q, “Writing for other people is the best way to trick yourself into writing for yourself in some unexpected way that isn’t attached to your vanity.”
1960s Soul
Sub Pop released “Real Love Baby” as a standalone single in 2016. Tillman produced the track with Thomas Brenneck, who leads the Brooklyn funk and soul group Menahan Street Band and is the guitarist in The Budos Band. He also played with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings.
Brenneck, with the Dap-Kings, played guitar on Amy Winehouse’s influential Back to Black, produced by Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi. On “Real Love Baby,” Brenneck places Tillman inside a similarly gorgeous time capsule of 1960s pop and soul music.
Valentine’s Day TikTok
Earlier this year, Tillman and director Eggs Tyrone gathered TikTok clips of people dancing to “Real Love Baby” and formed a music video around them. Tillman released the video in February on Valentine’s Day.
There’s an easiness and simplicity to “Real Love Baby,” which recalls the love songs of 1960s girl groups. The kind of groups Amy Winehouse echoed. But Tillman’s tender lyrics linger innocently on romance rather than the demons that consumed Winehouse.
His standalone single is another nod to the singles-oriented music business of the 1960s. Almost apologetically, when Tillman first uploaded the song to his SoundCloud page, he wrote, “why not.” The answer might be the song’s 345 million streams on Spotify.
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Photo by Richard Isaac/Shutterstock
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