Uninvited to the big soiree
‘Cause she rubs the folks the wrong, wrong way
Rough around the edges, you might say
Nothing wrong with that is what I’d say
Just four days after the single first prickled the air, Sparks return with a video that needles its way into absurd brilliance.
Porcupine is a sly dart of a song, equal parts smirk and sting. The Mael brothers lean into the comedy of contradictions: affection laced with barbs, tenderness wrapped in tin foil sarcasm. Russell delivers his lines with a kind of regal mischief, voice darting between sincerity and mockery. Ron’s keyboard phrases tumble with a practiced eccentricity, jaunty yet deliberate, as if winking through each chord.
The lyric sketches a woman edged in angles, resistant to embrace yet impossible to ignore. The tune masquerades as a playground chant while smuggling in sharper insights about the way people bruise and beguile each other. Sparks have long mastered this balance: triviality with teeth, humour cut against humanity.
Fred Rowson’s video frames the song’s whimsy with slapstick theatre. A trench-coated femme fatale stalks through a half-built construction site, her gaze cool, her posture impatient. Sparks play their part like animated spectators, while she turns menace into pantomime: the climax arrives as she commandeers a steamroller, gunning straight for the brothers in a sequence pulled from Looney Tunes’ rulebook. The chase is as ridiculous as it is delightful.
Watch the video for “Porcupine” below:
Here Sparks affirm their own strange durability. Few bands can stitch satire into such sweet melodies and then wrap it in imagery so unabashedly cartoonish. “Porcupine” lands like a sly wink across decades, reminding us that Sparks remain pop’s great jesters and, somehow, its most serious observers.
Listen to Porcupine below and preorder MADDER! here.
Sparks take this mischievous hymn on the road next week, weaving through Atlanta, Philadelphia, DC, Boston, New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, and beyond; a cavalcade of cities soon to find themselves also humming about love’s prickliest prize.
Tour Dates:
- Fri. Sept. 5 – Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle
- Mon. Sept. 8 – Philadelphia, PA @ Keswick Theatre
- Tue. Sept. 9 – Washington, DC @ Lincoln Theatre
- Thu. Sept. 11 – Boston, MA @ Berklee Performance Center
- Fri. Sept. 12 – Brooklyn, NY @ Kings Theatre
- Sun. Sept. 14 – Columbus, OH – KEMBA Live! * new venue
- Mon. Sept. 15 – Cleveland, OH – Agora Theatre * new venue
- Wed. Sept. 17 – Toronto, On @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
- Fri. Sept. 19 – Sun. Sept. 21 – Chicago, IL @ Riot Fest
- Sat. Sept. 20 – St. Paul, MN @ Fitzgerald Theater
- Tue. Sept. 23 – Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre
- Wed. Sept. 24 – Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre
- Fri. Sept. 26 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall
- Sat. Sept. 27 – San Francisco, CA @ Golden Gate Theatre
- Mon. Sept. 29 – El Cajon, CA @ The Magnolia
- Tue. Sept. 30 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek Theatre
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