Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl’s new song forces us to relive 2020’s pandemic blues
It’s coming up on 1 a.m., and “Saturday Night Live” is creaking to a close. But wait, there’s one final sketch thrown in for good measure. And that sketch might very well be a rendition of “Eazy Sleazy,” the new pandemic-is-almost-over song from Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl.
It’s almost funny. Almost. Is it supposed to be funny? Man, it’s getting late. It’s that kind of song.
“I wanted to share this song that I wrote about coming out of lockdown, with some much needed optimism,” Jagger tweeted Tuesday. “thank you to Dave Grohl @foofighters for jumping on drums, bass and guitar, it was a lot of fun working with you on this — hope you all enjoy Eazy Sleazy!”
So kudos to Mick for his optimism, which is represented in lyrics such as, “We’ll escape from these prison walls” and “It’s easy, easy / Everything’s gonna get really freaky.”
Fans are going to like this one, and maybe we’ll have a new Roaring ’20s soon enough! But did we really need a trip back through the past year-plus of quirky lockdown activities, or a reminder of how crappy pandemic life has been?
Zoom meetings. Learning to cook. Gaining weight. Booze. Even “Way too much TV / It’s lobotomizing me,” Jagger sings in one verse. In another, he laments “Looking at the graphs with a magnifying glass / Cancel all the tours / Football’s fake applause.” Masks. Stupid TikTok dances. It goes on and on.
Well, this one won’t go viral: Eric Clapton sings “Stand and Deliver,” the new anti-lockdown tune by Van Morrison. Eye-rolls strongly encouraged.
But Grohl predicts the song will be well received — perhaps even a summer smash.
“It’s hard to put into words what recording this song with Sir @MickJagger means to me,” Grohl tweeted Tuesday on the Foo Fighters’ account. “It’s beyond a dream come true. Just when I thought life couldn’t get any crazier......and it’s the song of the summer, without a doubt!!”
Nothing like a barbecue set to a soundtrack of whack-a-doo conspiracy theories — no matter how ironically intended — and reminders of mass death.
“Shooting the vaccine / Bill Gates is in my bloodstream / It’s mind control / The earth is flat and cold / It’s never warming up / The Arctic’s turned to slush / The second coming’s late / There’s aliens in the deep state,” Jagger sings.
Satire, sure. A solid enough tune. But song of the summer? Sorry, dudes — Lil Nas X is already in front of you in line with the much catchier “Montero (Call Me by Your Name).”
Pop fans with long memories will recognize the furor over Lil Nas X’s ‘Montero.’
Jagger and Grohl apparently didn’t learn from Van Morrison and Eric Clapton’s anti-lockdown tune, “Stand and Deliver,” which backfired and was ridiculed back in December. That song lashed out at governmental efforts to contain the pandemic, which wound up hurting musicians harder than most.
But that was no earworm — and neither is “Eazy Sleazy,” with lyrics that could have been pulled from any one of a jillion rambling, cranky COVID-19 diaries.
“Soon it’ll be a memory you’re trying to remember to forget,” Jagger sings. We couldn’t agree more.
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