Today we’re pleased to premiere the video for “Junior High School,” the first single off the new album Güdbye Stoopid Whirled from Brian Lisik.
Though shot before the COVID-19 crisis, the video and song have taken on added meaning amid lockdowns, multiplying deaths, a crashed economy, and political chaos. “Everybody’s tellin’ everybody else how they got great big plans,” sings Lisik in the deceptively bouncy-sounding track, but “Nobody can grow up these days, everybody’s scared.”
Shot on a community theater set for a production of Mathilda, the video places the viewer in a setting of learning and, ideally, of innocence. But the un-flashy video focuses attention on the lyrics, which the Akron, Ohio-based singer-songwriter wrote to address politicians and journalists who act as though middle-school social hierarchy never ended.
“Everybody’s scared” is the last thought the “Junior High School” video leaves you with. Says Lisik, “I hope people who hear the song get that, in a literal sense, it has nothing to do with school at all. Though I thought that was pretty obvious when I wrote it.”
We think you’ll agree. Check out the video below.
Brian Lisik’s Güdbye Stoopid Whirled will be out October 2 on Cherokee Queen Records.