No comic makes me feel better than Tommy McNamara. His 2019 album, Who’s Tommy, is an excellent representation of his stand up and songwriting. Last Christmas he released a Christmas themed EP of just songs, I Think I’m Starting to Like Christmas. It’s just as joyful and dumb as his debut LP.

I reached out to Tommy to begin our series Bit I Wish I Wrote. I figured he’d be a great person to start the series about comedy since his optimism and joy are evident in his work. Reading about comedy tends to get very depressing, very fast and I thought Tommy could start things off with a positive jam (I apologize for The Hold Steady reference but I’m definitely including it since Tommy and I both looks like we should be fans of The Hold Steady).

I shared our Song I Wish I Wrote Daniel Knox entry to give Tommy a framework. Rather than shine light on stand up or sketch, Tommy asked to write about a song. I’m glad he did.

Tommy McNamara is a Brooklyn based comedian. He performs regularly in New York. He’s opening for Patton Oswalt this Friday, October 8 at Kings Theater in Brooklyn.

Nothing made me laugh harder last year than On Cinema. I had heard about the Tim Heidecker/Gregg Turkington Adult Swim show for a while, but I had yet to check it out. When I suddenly found myself with a lot of free time in spring of 2020 (can’t remember why), I decided to dive in head first. It quickly became one of my favorite comedy projects. I don’t have enough of a word count to explain the full universe here (Chris Kopcow wrote a handy guide for Vulture: Vulture On Cinema Guide) but I would suggest just giving it a try. I ran through the 11 seasons, Oscar Specials, full length trial, and spin-offs in about a month. Now it’s even got its own platform, the HEI Network, with a new season on the way. 

My favorite moment in On Cinema came in a spinoff of the show, Decker. Tim Heidecker plays Decker, a CIA counter-terrorism special agent who loves to protect America from threats while spouting off Fox News talking points with the precision of a career drunk. In season 2 of the show, hilariously titled Decker: Port of Call: Hawaii,  Decker is on vacation. His best friend Lanoi Arnold is throwing him a big party at his bar (there are probably eight people there). When Decker arrives, the two reconnect and take shots. After a beat, Lanoi looks at Decker and asks, “Hey, you still sing?”

Decker, who to this point has never sung or mentioned singing in the series, quickly replies, “Yes, I’ve just been working on a new song.” What follows is “Our Values Are Under Attack,” the funniest bit of musical comedy I’ve ever seen.

A lot of people write comedic songs, but it’s hard to write a song that’s actually funny. I say that as someone who has tried and failed at it many times. I’ve seen the way audience members and comedians roll their eyes as I lug my keyboard onto the stage. I’ve also seen the fear in the eyes of those same people as I chase them to their cars, wielding that keyboard as a weapon. It’s a vicious cycle.  

Since it’s impossible to dissect what makes this song hysterical without ruining it, I’ll just tell you what I love about it.  First of all, Tim Heidecker is a phenomenal musician. His album Fear of Death was one of my favorites of 2019. As silly as it is, “Our Values Are Under Attack” is a genuinely catchy earworm (a word I hate), with a big hook chorus that’ll make you want to sing along. It’s even got a rap, or what this character thinks is rap, bridge. The lyrics are a perfect extension of the Decker character. It’s like an extremely rough draft of a Toby Keith anthem for the straw man conservative fears of the Trump era. “Ya wave a flag on Christmas Day, they’ll throw you in jail!” I mean, come on! He’s got a point. That happened to a neighbor of mine. 

What really makes this all time comedy for me is what’s going on around Decker as he sings. The background is full of the absurdist details that no one does better than Heidecker. Even though he has just mentioned that he is working on the song, it’s already got a full lyric and video karaoke (specifically: AMERIKARAOKE) available at the bar. The video includes various stock hyper-patriotic visuals, like a flag pin on top of a bible, the Statue of Liberty, and Mount Rushmore. It ends with Ronald Reagan saying “Mr. Gorbachev, take down this wall” with Decker photoshopped right next to him. 

My favorite video moment is during the lyric, “And the bad guys get the benefits, the rest of us pay their way,” which is accompanied on the video screen by an image of Barack Obama superimposed over a shot of a terrorist (played by Mark Proksch) from Season 1. There’s also the reactions from the bar patrons: a couple clapping just slightly out of rhythm, Lanoi Arnold nodding in approval, the bartender giving a thumbs up, a man who’s later revealed to be a record executive immediately standing up to see who’s singing, and Gregg Turkington, who in this series plays Special Agent Kington, sitting in the corner in “disguise” with a hat and sunglasses, all basking in the song’s glory. All these disparate details come together perfectly for two minutes of nonstop laughs. 

The first time I saw this song, I nearly fell off the couch. I immediately rewound it to start it again, then repeated that probably three more times. Then for months if I came home after a night out it would be the first thing I fired up, and I would still cackle even though I’d seen it a hundred times already. I know that this is one of those bits I’m going to keep watching forever, and that’s my right as an American. 

Recommend If You Like is not owned or funded by a billionaire or even a millionaire. We do have a Patreon. Even sites owned by billionaires and millionaires have Patreons so please don’t hold that against us. And we’re paying all of our writers, photographers and graphic designers. So please consider our Patreon. If you can't afford to become a patron, please sign up to our mailing list. It's free and we're asking here instead of a pop-up. Pop-ups are annoying.