Fun songs from Fun

The verse is just some piece of disturbing nonsense from a novelty tune: 

“Give me a second I/ I need to get my story straight/ my friends are in the bathroom getting higher than the Empire State/ my lover she’s waiting for me just across the bar/ my seats been taken by some sunglasses asking about a scar, and/ I know I gave it to you months ago/ I know you’re trying to forget/ but between the drinks and subtle thinks/ the holes in my apologies/ you know I’m trying hard to take it back/ so if by the time the bar closes/ and you feel like falling down/ I’ll carry you home.”

But the chorus is entirely something else. Truth to tell, it packs so much punch that it must be one of the most inspiring sounds ever written:

“The world is on my side/ I have no reason to run/ so will someone come and carry me home/ Tonight we are young/ so lets set the world on fire/ we can burn brighter than the sun/ Carry me home tonight Nananananana/ carry me home tonight Nanananananana/ just carry me home tonight Nananananan….”

You hear that chorus of We Are Young by the group Fun and don’t you just see the ball hitting the goal or the runner touching the tape, that crucial horse’s nose or a beauty queen’s triumphant walk. What about finding a smooth, deserted highway after a tiring heavy vehicle downtown traffic. No wonder it was used in the TV series Glee also in Chuck and in Wrestlemania. It was also the music for a Chevrolet commercial shown in the last Superbowl, after which the song shot up to the top of the US hit charts. It was No. 1 for six weeks straight.

Helping things along is R&B star Janelle Monae soaring vocals in the chorus plus the grandiose orchestration enhanced by a hard thumping beat guaranteed to move everybody off their seats. The song is part-pop, part-power ballad, part-rock and part-Broadway and just like the band Fun that created it, We Are Young sounds like lots of fun. The closest comparison I could think of is Queen, like something that is a cross between We Will Rock You and Bohemian Rhapsody but Queen was so serious. Fun is all tongue in cheek humor in its music and lyrics.

Fun is made up of Jack Antonoff on vocals, guitars and trumpet; Andrew Dost on vocals, piano, guitars, bass, trumpet, synths and others; and Nate Ruess, whose strong tenor voice must be the group’s most important asset. They are all young and talented. And surprise, they are all Americans. Their sound, the way they look, their CD cover, even the name Fun, all added up to British for me. In case you haven’t noticed, the most innovative, most exciting pop band music of recent times came from the Brits. But Fun is not.

We Are Young is the lead cut of Fun’s wonderfully produced second album Some Nights. It comes after the well-received debut, Aim And Ignite from three years ago. I have this feeling about how the CD was made. The boys of Fun put We Are Young in the middle of a diagram and then wrote songs that would radiate from the center. These would all have the same self-deprecating humor and will be set against bravura arrangements. 

It probably took a lot of nerve for them to get out of indie rock and to put out something so different. But they found a kindred soul in the Grammy-winning Jeff Bhasker producer, who has worked with Kanye West, Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Alicia Keys. With him as producer, Fun got its unique music together and fashioned a cohesive listening experience.

Some Nights is one smooth listen. I call the album quality walang lubak. In fact you do not only enjoy hearing the whole album, you also get the urge to replay it again and get to what Fun is saying with its catchy melodies. Aside from We Are Young, the other particularly interesting track is Stars. It is rock, and R&B spiced with classical strings. It is so good. I am left wondering how Fun was able to pull it off.