4:20 pm
KŌAN LP-only love song that refuses the genre: at 4:20 stop worrying, laugh off the lonely rock, guilt and all: you got my back, and singing feels like grasping for air you're already in.
Listen: Spotify·Apple Music
ISRC QZES82290013 (soundexchange)
Track twenty-four on KŌAN, LP-only (fourth movement with September, 1101, Get the Funk Out of My Head, Miss Disinformation, to everyone who had a good pandemic). Also released as a standalone single. Not on the KŌAN A/B/C chapters.
The title is a daily alarm to stop worrying, with survivor’s guilt baked in: I’m feeling good / then I feel guilty being happy. The answer is cosmic smallness, the same move as What Makes You You and Derrida Makes a Différance, except here the rock is shared: we’re on a lonely little rock / and there’s no reason why we can’t be pretty happy. The chorus stacks mutual repair (you got my back / I got your back) until it outlasts the guilt.
Then a love song that won’t admit it is one. I don’t write love songs cuz they’re cheesy, says the love song, before the real confession lands: when I go to sing it feels like you’re the air I’m grasping for. Breath as beloved. The bridge turns black and white dreams into colors taught in a lucid dream, capped by the height joke, we’re getting so high we can barely imagine a life spent without you (4:20 pm doing double duty). Pairs with Who Am I Really Fooling Anyway (laugh it up) and the KŌAN C cluster, the relational answer track on the full LP.
Written, performed, and mixed by Luke Francis Walton. Mastered by Riley Knapp. Artwork by Grizzard Graphics.
Lyrics
When it hits 4:20 pm I'm gonna stop my worrying I'm feeling good Then I feel guilty being happy You tell me I can laugh it off We're on a lonely little rock And there's no reason why we can't be Pretty happy You got my back I got your back When we get down bad We build each other right back up You got my back I got your back When we get down bad We build each other right back up I don't write love songs cuz they're cheesy And I'm cutting back on my derriere But you should know that on the daily When I go to sing It feels like you're the air I'm grasping for Some more When it hits 4:20 pm I'm gonna stop my worrying I'm feeling good Then I feel guilty being happy You tell me I can laugh it off We're on a lonely little rock And there's no reason why we can't be Pretty happy You got my back I got your back When we get down bad We build each other right back up You got my back I got your back When we get down bad We build each other right back up I used to dream in black and white Reliving moments of a boring life You brought me to a lucid dream Teaching me colors while I'm fast asleep What took you so long To come find me We're getting so high We can barely imagine A life spent Without you When it hits 4:20 pm I'm gonna stop my worrying I'm feeling good Then I feel guilty being happy You tell me I can laugh it off We're on a lonely little rock And there's no reason why we can't be Pretty happy You got my back I got your back When we get down bad We build each other right back up You got my back I got your back When we get down bad We build each other right back up You got my back I got your back When we get down bad We build each other right back up You got my back I got your back When we get down bad We build each other right back up You got my back I got your back