Written in the aftermath of a breakup and a pandemic, “Fuck You, God, I’m Busy” is a belligerent firestorm of a love song, featuring electric guitar, Wurlitzer organ and Alex McCulloch’s powerful vocals. It is the first single off Alex McCulloch’s upcoming solo album, and the song and lyric video drop January 28, 2022. “Fuck You, God, I’m Busy” is an energetic folk-rock ballad about saying “fuck it” and falling in love all over again. The track was produced by by Juno-award winning artists Dave Ritter (The Strumbellas) and John Dinsmore (NQ Arbuckle, Donovan Woods) and recorded at Lincoln County Social Club in Toronto.
Alex McCulloch is a singer-songwriter from Scarborough, Ontario who has performed at Canadian Music Week, Indie Week and in venues such as the Horseshoe Tavern, the Opera House and the Silver Dollar Room. With titles like “Bourbon and Love Songs” and “Fuck you, God, I’m Busy,” Alex is primed to emerge on the scene as a deeply personal songwriter with an inspiring and resilient message. In our interview, Alex writes about her influences and the best way to get radical honesty into your songs.
Who are some of your musical influences?
Probably my biggest influence is the Boss. My dad used to play Bruce Springsteen’s Greatest Hits on tape in the car. The ferocity and honesty and energy of those songs. I don’t care that it’s an 80s sound, the songs are fucking amazing.
Who would you love to collaborate with? why?
I would love to collaborate with Mustafa the Poet, from Regent Park in Toronto. As someone from Scarborough, another interesting part of the city, and I related to some of the stories he tells in his album. A while after I found out another friend died of an overdose, I listened to When Smoke Rises. The pain that he expressed on that album is pure and beautiful and it made me feel less alone. I also love the way he played with the folk genre and that’s something that I found really inspiring.
Explain the title of your single.
“Fuck You, God, I’m Busy” is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It’s irreverent and tongue-in-cheek. It’s a song about defying the powers that be, about going for something that maybe you have felt unworthy of in the past. When I wrote the song, I’d just left a marriage and was slowly putting my life together. It’s a weird thing to be a 25-year-old divorcee. I was pretty mad at the universe, and as a not very good Catholic, that translated to being mad at my higher power. But the song also about finding a way towards falling in love again. The chorus says: “Fuck you, God, I’m busy falling in love” and the verses are sort of instructions on how I might go about doing that thing of falling in love, such as “I will think about killing you.” I’ve mellowed out a bit since writing this song, but I think it’s a pretty nice snapshot of the frenetic state I was in at the time.
Tell us about the first song you wrote.
I wrote my first song in Gr. 8. It was called “Next Fall” and it was about my fears of entering high school and possibly drifting apart from my friends. It was the perfect way to process and express the ambivalence I felt about growing up, and that’s still how I use songwriting today: to understand and process complex experiences.
Do you have any songwriting tips you can share?
My recommendation to anyone who wants to write a song is to go out and get your heart broken. It doesn’t have to be romance, it can be a friendship, a family relationship, a job that goes south. The greatest songs are about the struggle of the human experience.
Alex McCulloch — Facebook, Instagram, Streaming (Distrokid)