Father John Misty, the current solo project from singer-songwriter and former Fleet Foxes drummer Josh Tillman, is ramping up for the February release of his latest album, I Love You, Honeybear. Today, he delivered the second single and the first music video for the record, the enigmatic mouthful, “Chateau Lobby #4 (In C For Two Virgins)”. The track is a sweetly building orchestral love song, with Spanish guitars, brass and strings, bringing to mind some of the more downbeat works of Herb Alpert or Burt Bacharach.

The home-made video is a hazy, intimate montage of Tillman and his wife, the filmmaker Emma Tillman, during their anniversary (at, what appears to be, the Chateau Marmot, fittingly enough). With a slightly kaleidoscopic tunnel effect akin to shooting through the bottom of a Coca-Cola bottle, we see Sir and Madam Tillman rolling around in bed, looking out windows, swimming, and eating delicious pancakes. Okay, it’s not the most compelling music video in the world, but Tillman is not concerned, stating in a press release: “I don’t care all that much if you like the music video or not. The label isn’t crazy about it. Management isn’t crazy about it.  I have been informed I’m basically kissing an MTV “Woodie” award goodbye forever. I made it on an iPad on my wedding anniversary with the one I love. We ate pancakes.”

In the same press release, Tillman explained his original (and amazing) vision for the music video involved renting a chapel, filling it with costumed kittens, and staging a wedding with himself as minister. To our severe disappointment, he scrapped the idea when faced with the real world costs of hiring kitten wranglers. While we won’t be entirely whole until we finally see that kitten wedding video, this beautiful track is a fine consolation prize.

Read Tillman’s hilarious press release in full below:

A few months ago, I had an idea for a music video.  I was going to rent a wedding chapel, get a dozen kittens and stage a kitten wedding, over which I would preside and intercut with performance footage of me lip-syncing the song which you’re hearing today, “Chateau Lobby #4 (in C for Two Virgins)”.

Sounds great, right?  It may have even gone viral because kittens.  If a video goes viral, that means you’re reaching a wider audience, and you might even get on a chart.  If you get on a chart that means you’re streaming more records, and the more records you’re streaming the more money you supposedly have for hiring kitten wranglers.

Aside from the fact that kitten wranglers are considerably more expensive than you may realize and that said-kitten wranglers all informed me there was no way we were going to be able get the outfits I had mocked up onto said-kittens, there was another extenuating factor involved in the decision to abort this music video concept and ruin the slim likelihood that I might ever get to see the Huffington Post entertainment headline “EX-FLEET FOXES DRUMMER WEDS CATS”.

That reason is that the song actually means a great a deal to me.

It’s got the #4 on it because this iteration Chateau Lobby was the 4th attempt at arranging and producing the song that did not turn out perversely sentimental. Sentimentality brutalizes emotion. Much like ironic music videos.

I don’t care all that much if you like the music video or not. The label isn’t crazy about it. Management isn’t crazy about it. I have been informed I’m basically kissing an MTV “Woodie” award goodbye forever.  I made it on an iPad on my wedding anniversary with the one I love. We ate pancakes.

I love you,

Josh.