David Lynch's "Crazy Clown Time" single tries your patience for David Lynch and/or crazy clowns
David Lynch’s Black Lodge shadow-self continues to make the most of his time here, replacing the David Lynch who used to make unnerving, hallucinatory movies and television shows with a David Lynch whose chief interests are transcendental meditation, entrepreneurial expansion, and crafting stultifying pop songs. As promised by the recently revealed title of his solo debut, the time for filmmaking is over, and Crazy Clown Time is nigh, heralded now by the just-released title track which you can hear below (and download here in exchange for an email, which unlocks the door on a strange, dreamlike alternate universe filled with press releases).
Unlike the somewhat-lobotomized “Good Day Today,” “Crazy Clown Time” has sort of a swampy Nick Cave meets Captain Beefheart vibe—at least until Lynch begins nattering over it in his creepy falsetto, relaying a story about three people who may or may not be crazy clowns who put on, then take off shirts, then continually run around and scream until they spit up beer on each other. This goes on for approximately the entire running time of the “James meets the bored rich housewife” subplot on Twin Peaks. All in all, “Crazy Clown Time” definitely gives Crispin Glover’s “Clownly Clown Clown” a run for “clown-based song you’re most likely to pretend is actually pretty good based on the fact that it’s made by an eccentric filmmaker you like.”