In Performance: Tim Robinson Rides Shotgun on ‘Friday Night’

Could there be anything more stomach-churning than the thought of standing up to sing at the funeral of a loved one? The concept collides that which we fear most: death with all of its attendant grief and more daunting still, the art of public performance.

Yet that’s precisely the task faced by Tim Robinson at the end of the fourth episode of his hit Netflix comedy series I Think You Should Leave. His preparations have been far from perfect. Instead of vocal exercises and a suitable spell wallowing in grief, Robinson has been drawn away from the graveside by a man in desperate need of a good honking.

Robinson has been driving around town with a ‘Honk If You’re Horny’ sticker on the back of his Mustang Convertible. He thought it was just a small joke, but the previous day the driver of a dusty SUV pulled up behind him at a stoplight and experienced a moment of revelation. Recognising himself in the sentiment, the man in the flannel shirt (Conner O’Malley) furiously obliges. ‘Urgh-urgh-urrrggghhh!’ he begins moaning, ‘That’s me! Me! That’s Me!’

The man tails Robinson in his car, blaring his horn and groaning. ‘Me?’ Robinson asks incredulously, and waves his hand, signalling for the car to go round, but this man is not for turning. He follows Robinson to his place of work and honks out in the street, then makes Robinson toss and turn as he hoots his horn while Robinson lies in bed at home sleeping.

The next day Robinson puts on suit and tie and attends the funeral. He appears to have escaped his interlocutor. But as the pastor utters words of comfort before the casket is lowered into the ground, the man pulls up by the roadside and resumes honking. As Robinson stomps over to deal with the disturbance, flannel shirt falls out of his car and begins writhing and squirming. He seems crazed and distressed: either he has a terrible itch or he’s paying some sort of twisted homage to Leatherface from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

The man explains that he’s just very horny. He points out the bumper sticker on Robinson’s convertible and cries foul, asking ‘Do you have a solution, like some magazines or a calendar or something?’ When Robinson responds in disbelief, the man says ‘I thought that you worked for like a service or a company that helped out guys that are so horny that their stomachs hurt, cause that’s what I am!’ He chastises Robinson, accusing him of deception.

Harking back to his youth, Robinson shares a heartrending backstory. He describes growing up in a small town, where small jokes were one way of alleviating the hardship. If the memory is meant to forge a bond between the two men, flannel shirt cuts through the sentiment. Evidently he is horny indeed. After pleading his ignorance, Robinson finally sates his tormentor by offering him his pick from a trunk-full of pornography.

The two men hug as the music begins. Introduced as ‘the son of the deceased’, it’s time for Robinson’s performance. Without breaking stride, he returns to the graveside and swivels on the microphone stand, turning to face his fellow mourners. The first lines are uttered tentatively and tremulously, more spoken word than full-throated song, but there’s an earnestness to Robinson’s voice and he performs with conviction:

Friday night
I’m thinking that we just might
Fly away to someplace
They don’t know
Who we are

Sustained by a simple piano melody in counterpoise, now guitars and drums kick in to drive the hook:

Now I’m riding shotgun in your car
We drive through the city like explorers going sixty-five
Blowing hair flying ‘cross your face
We left on Friday, now it’s Saturday

And picking up the pace for an evocative chorus:

Pressed jeans buttoned up
Jeans ironed, slippin’ up
Red shoes walkin’ slow
Headphones blarin’ Three Stacks
Sunglasses flarin’ out
Thick watch hangin’ low
Studded belt pulled taut
Three Stacks on the radio

Robinson sings with an air of plaintive detachment. In other hands the song could sound maudlin or merely nostalgic, but he pushes through all of that with a steely focus, even as the smattering of well-wishers nod approvingly or wipe away a tear.

Redolent of ‘Fast Car’ by Tracy Chapman with the weekday specificity of ‘Friday’ by Rebecca Black, the song eschews any assault on the charts with its slowed-down pace and independent mindset. Thanks to its easy evocation of place, it could even be characterised as slacker rock of the sort plied in by Pavement or an early Modest Mouse if it wasn’t for the blue-eyed care and heartworn sentiment.

Instead Tim Robinson’s song serves as an ode to the eighties and roots rock. Its closest counterparts may be found in the riffs and reminiscences of Journey and John Mellencamp, even though the solitary lyrical reference is to ‘Three Stacks’, otherwise known as André 3000. In comedy terms the forebears are Jim Carrey as Andy Kaufman, singing ‘This Friendly World’ at his own funeral in Man on the Moon, and Will Ferrell who performs ‘Dust in the Wind’ as a tribute to Blue in Old School.

As he stands in the crystal clear dawn by the graveside in I Think You Should Leave, Tim Robinson plays on the masculine connotations of all of these genres. With a final valediction at the end of the song, Robinson provides the kicker: this funeral was for his mother.