Courtney Barnett Has Some Bad News: “Everybody Here Hates You”

Courtney Barnett’s first new music of 2019 has arrived: anxiety-ridden rocker “Everybody Here Hates You,” out now via Mom+Pop/Marathon Artists/Milk! Records.

The Australian indie-rock singer-songwriter recorded this new single in late 2018 during a precious bit of downtime amid her world tour in support of Tell Me How You Really Feel, one of Paste’s top albums of 2018. A press release describes “Everybody Here Hates You” as the “final installment from the creative period of Barnett’s life which gave birth to” her sophomore album, framing the song as more an ending than a beginning. (Said release makes no mention of a new album from the hard-touring artist, though we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed regardless.)

“Everybody Here Hates You” finds the Grammy nominee singing with a bemused, Lou Reed-like lilt in her voice, staring anxiety and depression straight in the eye: “I feel stupid, I feel useless, I feel insane,” she sings over old-timey organ and ragged, bluesy guitar, nodding at R.E.M. and ultimately resolving, “We’re gonna tell everyone it’s okay.”

Barnett premiered her new single on Australian radio’s Triple J, explaining that it’s about “some sort of social anxiety that then morphs into paranoia and a level of sadness and depression, like when you think a haircut will help you, or a clean meal will cleanse you, as if all these things will make you feel better, but really, nothing is gonna fix you, so you kinda just have to tell everyone that it’s all okay so they don’t worry [laughs].”

She continued, “But it’s also tongue in cheek. If my friend said to me, ‘I think everybody here hates me,’ I would say, ‘Nah, it’s only in your head and everyone’s just thinking the same thing. Everyone’s too busy thinking about themselves to actually worry about what you or I are doing.’ And obviously I was listening to a little bit of Jeff Buckley when I came up with that title.”

Barnett will release “Everybody Here Hates You” as a Record Store Day-exclusive 12-inch this Saturday, April 13, backed by b-side “Small Talk,” a Tell Me How You Really Feel outtake she released digitally last October.

The new single arrives as Barnett readies for an extensive tour of North America and Europe, which will include her first-ever shows in Greece, Turkey, Croatia and Hungary; a number of high-profile festival sets, both Stateside and beyond, including Woodstock 50 and Bonnaroo, Firefly, Comedy Central’s Clusterfest and Wilco’s Solid Sound; and various U.S. dates alongside The National. Here’s hoping she finds some more time to write and record along the way.

Enjoy “Everybody Here Hates You” below, plus a 2015 Barnett performance from the Paste archives, and find the artist’s tour dates further down.