B-Side Guys

Rock music often excels at nihilism without purpose. What elevates Johnny Manchild and the Poor Bastards’ “Voluntary Animals” is how it channels existential recognition into genuine insight, creating an anthem of species humility that somehow avoids both despair and preachiness.

This latest offering from the Oklahoma City ensemble continues their tradition of genre-defying compositions, blending jazz idioms, alt-rock structures, world music influences, and funk sensibilities into something distinctly their own. The track’s sophisticated arrangements justify the praise heaped upon them by critics like Anthony Fantano, who once questioned “what gives them the right to be this good?”—a question the band has answered through relentless musical exploration and a growing international fanbase (now 28+ million streams strong).

What distinguishes “Voluntary Animals” from similar philosophical examinations is its musical accessibility. While the lyrical content explores heady terrain—human exceptionalism, existential limitations, the illusion of control—the delivery balances intellectual weight with immediate emotional impact. Johnny Manchild navigates these waters with vocal precision that recalls both MCR’s theatricality and Panic at the Disco’s melodic sensibility, without directly imitating either.

The song’s lyrical structure creates a narrative arc that moves from youthful arrogance (“Too young to die, too cool to burn”) toward reluctant wisdom. The chorus embraces our status as “voluntary animals”—beings who choose our actions but remain fundamentally creatures within nature rather than above it. This tension between choice and limitation creates the track’s philosophical backbone, suggesting how acceptance of our animal nature might paradoxically lead to greater clarity rather than diminished purpose.

Most striking is the track’s recognition of humanity’s contradictory impulses. References to being “cannibals and gettin’ full on you” acknowledge our species’ predatory tendencies, while the repeated parenthetical affirmation “right on” creates ironic distance—suggesting our casual acceptance of these problematic behaviors. The Timothy Leary-echoing instruction to “turn on, tune in, drop out and kill your mind” functions as both historical reference and contemporary critique of false consciousness.

For a band that has consistently refused genre limitations since their 2016 formation, “Voluntary Animals” represents another evolutionary step. As preview of their forthcoming fifth album, the track suggests Johnny Manchild and the Poor Bastards remain committed to intellectual and musical exploration without sacrificing the accessibility that has built their “rabidly dedicated” following.

In Manchild’s own words, the song explores “how little control we really have to change things in the grand scheme,” ultimately suggesting that it “feels better to accept that we’re just another small piece of everything.” This humbling recognition transforms what could be bleak nihilism into something approaching ecological wisdom—a perspective increasingly necessary in an era of anthropogenic climate crisis and continued human exceptionalism.