Father John Misty’s new record feels like an ending, but it’s not his last

Mahashmashana, the title of Father John Misty’s sixth studio album, is a Sanskrit word meaning “great cremation ground.” Fittingly, the musician says the record feels like an ending.

“This album does feel, I mean, I don’t want to crash any markets or anything, but this does feel like the last record to me,” says Father John Misty.

Father John Misty’s Josh Tillman explains he likely has more albums left to create, but that Mahashmashana feels like a “last album” in spirit. In this session, Tillman talks about what he loves — and doesn’t love — about songwriting, the food he made for the studio, where aliens might live, and we talk about the urge listeners feel to interpret and analyze his lyrics.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.