Photo Credit: Alexander Kellner
“Samaritans” is the third single off of IDLES upcoming sophomore album Joy as an Act of Resistance, due out August 31st, 2018. I previously featured their second single “Danny Nedelko” as a Daily Dose of Protest.
Both the tune and video is a scathing indictment of toxic masculinity. While performing in concert lead singer Joe Talbot is known to introduce “Samaritans” the following way: “This is a song about the disease in the brain called masculinity.”
In a press statement Talbot goes on to elaborate: “There’s been a long line of bullshit that has pushed men into a corner, where simple masking becomes a trope of masculinity and a catalyst for insanity.”
That emotional masking could be considered a catalyst among the increasing suicide rates among men. Also mass shooters are often men and even though you don’t want to over simplify the causes, toxic concepts of what it means to be a man certainly doesn’t help.
The potent chorus of the tune is sung from a perspective of a young person who is fighting hard to remove “the mask of masculinity”. The chorus features the line “I’m a real boy / Boy, and I cry / I like myself /And I want to try,” which challenges the poisonous cliché that boys don’t cry along with flipping Nirvana’s “I Hate Myself and Want To Die”.
Toxic masculinity may be a disease, but it isn’t incurable. As a society we have to reject hurtful ideologies which helps spread the infection.