BY: DIGITAL WAX MEDIA STAFF

 

Everyone’s favorite sardonic wordsmith, Josh Tillman – known professionally as Father John Misty – has treated fans to a timely Valentine’s Day offering in the form of I Love You, Honeybear, Demos, etc.

 

A stripped-back version of Tillman’s highly acclaimed I Love You, Honeybear, first released in 2015, the latest collection presented under the Father John Misty moniker offers a distinctly unique take on the beloved set of tunes, released just over a decade prior.

 

Interestingly, the anniversary drop follows the unanticipated removed of the original I Love You, Honeybear album from certain streaming services, a development which did not go unnoticed by eagle-eyed FJM fans.

 

Although marketed as “demos,” many of the vocals and instrumentation comprising I Love You, Honeybear, Demos, etc are almost certainly the very same ones occupying the 2015 studio release. The “demo” quality to which the title alludes is most likely a rough-recording aesthetic applied to the tracks through various mixing techniques, including the removal of much of the lush, orchestral instrumentation complementing the numbers throughout the original I Love You, Honeybear.

 

Certain bits throughout the Demos, etc. are in fact obviously different than their 2015 counterparts. Among these is original album highlight “Holy Sh*t,” which in this new (old?) context sees Tillman opting for a lower register for particular vocal runs in which he is known to have gone for the highs.

 

Additionally, this iteration of “Holy Sh*t” – logged in the track list as “Past is a Nightmare I’m Trying to Wake Up From – features a fairly clean transition into the tune’s final verse and chorus – a distinctly disparate approach by comparison to the orchestral-break-leading-into-dramatic-modulation of the version of the time listeners have come to know up to this point.

 

An acoustic guitar-based “Bored in the USA” presents an interesting – and even more markedly stark – take on the well-known piano-based version of the tune. Aside from an acoustic guitar buried in the mixed, Tillman’s reverb-washed lead vocal is accompanied only by similarly buried-in-the mix backing vocals.

A portion of the material released on February 14, 2025, as I Love You, Honeybear, Demos, Ect. first saw the light of day all the way back in 2015 by way of the cassette-only release of “I Luv You HB” Demos, which was included on a limited-supply basis from the Sub Pop label as part of certain pre-orders for the I Love You, Honeybear album.

 

The Father John Misty cover of Cass McCombs’ Nobody’s Nixon,” for example was among the tracks included as part of the ”I Luv You HB” Demos release. The cover artwork is also distinctly similar for both releases, although alterations for the 2025 release include those made to reflect the addition of tracks such as the Sirius XM session cover of Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box.”

 

 

 

The collection closes with “I Loved You Honeybee,” which includes some of the more orchestral elements of the studio original but omits certain elements such as handclaps heard in the version of the tune which opens this collection, which is stylized as “I Luv U Honeybear.”

I Love You, Honeybear, Demos, etc is now available to stream on all major platforms.

 

Photo: I Love You Honeybear, Demos, etc. – Fair Use