Random Records with Steve O

Goodbye Blue Monday - Misery-Punk Ruined My Life

I had never heard of Goodbye Blue Monday before last week. I saw that Dying Scene was streaming their new EP, Misery​-​Punk Ruined My Life, admittedly an awesome title in its own right. But Goodbye Blue Monday caught my attention, because I can’t just turn down checking out something that is so blatantly Vonnegut inspired. Breakfast of Champions, his 1973 novel about the converging of Kilgore Trout’s outlandish science fiction and the depressed Dwayne Hoover, essentially living the American dream as a car salesman who takes Trout’s word as truth, is subtitled Goodbye Blue Monday. You should probably go read it now if you haven’t; like all Vonnegut novels it is a fast read, and this one is full of pictures too!

So I absolutely had to check out the band Goodbye Blue Monday. And it’s pretty rad too. The music is fast and catchy, but on the heavier side of pop punk. The songs are structured to make you want to sing along, and the lyrics, while deep and intense at times, are easy to sing along to. Hailing from Scotland, they definitely have that sense of self-deprecation found in countrymen the Murderburgers. But I totally hear Off With Their Heads too. When frontman Graham Lough rasps in the chorus of the title track, “Why must I be so miserable? / Why are misery and I inseparable?” not only does he sound like Ryan Young, but it sounds like something Young would sing in any OFTW song as well. And the whole track is so catchy you could be the happiest person in the world and still want to sing along to lines like “How can there be so many good things? / How can none of these good things come to mind?” “Worst in the Morning” has some great lines about procrastination and self-induced isolation that we can all relate to, rolling through a more mid-paced number. “Love is a Noose for Two” is equal parts somber and upbeat as hell, with Lough wondering “There must be more to life than this” regarding the steps we go through as we age (“Get a job, get married / Get a house, reminisce / Have kids, get buried”). Perhaps a thought bouncing around Dwayne Hoover’s mind too.

Check out Goodbye Blue Monday here. Misery-Punk Ruined My Life is a short blast of raspy, catchy punk rock with a healthy dose of self-deprecation. If that’s your thing and you’re looking for something to rock out to while waiting for Off With Their Heads to put out a new record, Goodbye Blue Monday is up your alley. And for being such a self-deprecating band, there’s no doubt they’re having a blast in the video for the title track.