Listen to Ben Folds and Nick Hornby's "Levi Johnston's Blues"

As we learned a year ago, piano-pop maven Ben Folds and author Nick Hornby are collaborating on a soon-to-be-released but as-yet-untitled album. The duo’s wry self-awareness of music and literature seem like a natural fit, but it’s still hard to predict what fruit this pairing will bear.

Well, we can wonder no more with news of a song called “Levi Johnston’s Blues,” a paean to Sarah Palin’s erstwhile son-in-law. PopWatch reported in September that Folds and Hornby decided to “immortalize Levi Johnston in song,” and a rough studio cut of the track has hit the internet recently.

And how did the duo tackle the legacy of this self-described “fuckin’ redneck?” With smooth guitars, pulsing bass and lyrics like, “So I tell him, No, you got it wrong, mister / Already with a girl, and her name’s Bristol / They all laugh and say, where you been, sonny? / Your mother-in-law’s a heartbeat from the presidency.” Take a listen.

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