The feeling it imparts is a more general melancholy about the transitory nature of time. If you didn’t know the backstory, you might be able to guess something was wrong and that DeMarco was thinking about his own aging and mortality more than before. These are records that trap the listener in a room with the artists’ grievances. Many recently acclaimed albums have been rooted in well-publicized personal tragedy. It’s the most wrenching thing DeMarco’s ever written. The album ends with “Watching Him Fade Away,” in which the Canadian singer-songwriter admits the only reason he’d want to talk to his dad is to tell him off-the only connection they could still have. When he returns to his childhood home on “Moonlight on the River,” he describes it in the sort of nostalgic language that tells us he doesn’t visit much the song ends with a barrage of feral noises, as if the landscape has become unfamiliar. “On the Level” is structured as an entreaty from a father for his son to “ make an old man proud,” which is awfully ominous given the family history, and even without that knowledge, there’s still those creepy, bent synthesizers.įamily, and DeMarco’s increased distance from it, is a major concern of This Old Dog. When he looks in the mirror and sees more of his old man in him, we know he’s not just talking about the lines on his face. This Old Dog’s opening “My Old Man” confirms what fans might have long guessed: DeMarco’s worried about turning into his dad. It’s known DeMarco’s father abandoned his family to disappear into booze and drugs. His debut LP, 2, featured an ode to cigarettes with the refrain “ I’ll smoke you ’til I’m dying.” One of the most quoted lyrics from sophomore album, Salad Days, was “ What mom don’t know is taking its toll on me.” On his latest This Old Dog, he rephrases it, just barely: “ There’s a price tag hanging off of having all that fun.” But through his music, all he can really think about is what all that hedonism might do to him. Mac DeMarco likes to party-that’s a fact nearly as well-known as his music.

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