Over the last year Tim Heidecker has been releasing a series of easy listening, 1970s singer-songwriter-style songs about Donald Trump on Bandcamp and Soundcloud. They work as bone dry satire of our current president and the mentality of those who would vote for them, with Heidecker voicing a series of Randy Newman-esque unreliable narrators, including Trump himself. If you weren’t familiar with Heidecker, you’d maybe think they were legitimate conservative outsider art; knowing his politics and his point-of-view, they’re both hilarious comedy and scathing protest songs about this utterly incompetent president.
Heidecker will be collecting all 11 of his Trump songs, along with Father John Misty’s cover of “Trump’s Private Pilot,” on a digital album coming out on Nov. 8 through Jagjaguwar / Rado Records. Too Dumb for Suicide: Tim Heidecker’s Trump Songs will be a digital-only release, timed for the one-year anniversary of Trump’s still-inexplicable election, and with a portion of its proceeds being donated to suicide prevention organizations. You can check out a trailer below, set to Heidecker’s song “Sentencing Day.”
Here’s what Heidecker himself has to say about Too Dumb for Suicide, per a press release from Jagjaguwar / Rado:
“Well here it is. About one year in the making, all my Trump songs in one place. Most of these songs were written and recorded quickly, with the blood still boiling from whatever indignity or absurdity had popped up on my newsfeed that day. Certainly, ‘Trump Tower’ was written in the rotten dawn, days after Trump’s win. Let’s hope I don’t write any more of these, but I probably will. Thanks to Davin Wood for playing piano on ‘Trump Tower,’ and thanks to Jonathan Rado, who produced and played on a good number of these (the ones where you hear some of that beautiful tape hiss on, mostly) – his tribute to Steve Nieve on ‘Imperial Bedroom’ is particularly inspired. Thanks to Kane Ritchotte and Max Whipple for providing the best rhythm section a boy could ask for and to Jordan Katz, Taylor Plenn and David Ralicke for laying down some sweet horns on ‘Wilbur Ross.’ Thanks to Vic Berger for adding some backups to ‘Sentencing Day’ and for usually being the best audience for these tunes. Thanks to Josh Tillman for surprising me with a tear-inducing cover of ‘Trump’s Private Pilot’ and for allowing us to include it here… Finally, NO thanks to Paul Simon who didn’t let us include ‘I Am A Cuck.’”