This was easily my favorite song from The Hold Steady’s Stay Positive. It’s a typical Hold Steady song in that it’s about a girl with a fucked up history played out against a backdrop of casual sex and drinking. But I had always heard it as being 100% earnest. Until I heard it in this stripped down, singer-songwriteresque arrangement, punctuated by the insufferable laughter—the smarmy chuckles at the end of every couple lines, just so everybody gets it that you’re in on the joke (cf. David Sedaris readings)—I didn’t realize how damn funny the song is.

I may have to revisit my relationship with the Hold Steady now.