If you haven’t picked up Kurt Vile’s debut album “Smoke Ring for My Halo,” here’s your encouragement to do so. A young guy who sounds like he’s lived, there are some heavy-laden laments (to name a few: “I get sick of just about everyone”, “But then I just sat there just trying on faces/Wanna erase my discrete disgraces”,  “Society is my friend/He makes me lie down/in a cool blood bath”). There is also a yearning hope for something, well, un-sticking (Jesus Fever‘s chorus goes: “I started shaking and my heart breaking/And my belly crawled/A Jesus fever’s flowing all over/Believers and lovers”). The lyrics of “Puppet to the Man” seem to capture both the acknowledgment of our human “puppetry” and a hope for something to free us up.

I bet by now
You prob’ly think I’m a puppet
To the man
Well, I’ll tell you right now
You best believe that I am

Sometimes I’m struck and then
I think I can’t unglue it

This one goes out to all those
Who want the rat to survive
And of course by this
I am alluding I want him to die

My sister’s stuck
And she don’t think she can unglue it
Sometimes I get stuck in a rut, too
It’s okay, girlfriend
Sometimes I’m in a rut so much
I don’t want it to end

I bet by now
You prob’ly think I’m a puppet
To the man
Well, I shout it out loud
Because I know that I am

Sometimes I’m stuck
And then I think I can’t unglue it
Will you help me do it?

Will you help me do it?
Will you help me do it?

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