Actually, it was the worst of times when Winkler’s Justin Schaefers wrote “Call it Good Times.”
One minute, the singer and guitarist was scarfing down a tasty pork taco on vacation; the next, he was battling food poisoning and bedridden, “looking the devil straight in the eye, mind and body pushed to limit.” And in a twist no one expected, he pulled a jaunty love tune from the depths of his queasiness.
The Boston band releases “Call it Good Times” today (January 20) as the first single from their forthcoming record For You, Now, due out February 17. The upbeat first taste of the record couldn’t be further removed from the bad taste in Schaefers’ mouth when he wrote the song in 2020, carefully positioned in bed to pacify an upset stomach.
“I had the guitar on the floor next to the bed but couldn’t even turn my head to look at it without feeling waves of nausea starting to kill me,” Schaefers says. “Without anything to do, I just started playing the same two chords back and forth in my head and tried to think of as many contradictions as possible. This, with the help of some Dramamine and a few revisions, became ‘Call it Good Times.’”
It checks out, then, that the final form of “Call it Good Times” feels happily lovesick, as Winkler layer sprightly, old school production elements over lighthearted pleas for romance. “I must be somebody’s problem / You know it / Why can’t that someone be you?” Schaefers sings on the chorus, shifting the song’s narrative to reflect his life post-pork taco incident.
“Between writing the verses of the song and the chorus, I started dating my girlfriend,” he tells Vanyaland. “The verses and chorus became much more connected each other, with the verses being written about the desire for love and the chorus more looking in the face of it.”
Well, better to look romance in the eye than the devil.
“Call it Good Times” with Winkler below.
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