Open Mike Eagle / What Happens When I Try to Relax - EP / 2018
Microfiche
wry, anxious, exhausted
Open Mike Eagle stitches together deadpan self-deprecation, pop-culture non-sequiturs, and a quietly devastating account of a bad night into a track that feels like stream-of-consciousness but is really about the mind's defense mechanisms. The dense wordplay and cartoon references function as camouflage for a genuine account of anxiety, insomnia, and dissociation, with the hook offering the fantasy of simply closing your eyes and making it all disappear.
mental health and anxiety self-deprecating humor as coping pop culture as escapism aging and bodily decline emotional numbness
Who's speaking
First-person narrator addressing the listener directly and occasionally his partner; the voice is candid but deflects real vulnerability through jokes, making him a partially reliable narrator who undercuts his own confessions almost as soon as he makes them.
What happens
The song opens with small physical complaints and comic asides that establish a persona of wry self-awareness, then pivots midway into a genuinely dark account of a sleepless, tearful night and a bad dream, briefly dropping the jokes to show real distress. The hook arrives as a kind of dissociative mantra, offering the option to shut it all out. The final verse retreats fully into rapid-fire cartoon and game references, suggesting the narrator has returned to deflection as a way of managing what surfaced in the middle section.
How it's built
Two verses built from loosely connected couplets bookend a pivotal stanza where the joking tone breaks down into direct emotional disclosure, followed by a repetitive, incantatory hook. A third verse restores the chaotic reference-heavy style, structurally mirroring the retreat into humor after the moment of exposure -- the song's shape enacts the coping mechanism it describes.
Section by section
Opening verse
The song begins with mundane, almost sitcom-ready complaints about aging and minor domestic gripes, establishing a wandering, joke-forward voice that seems designed to keep things light.]}],
First chorus riff
“Fuck the NFL, fuck the redzone”
A burst of specific, almost throwaway irritation works as a release valve, letting frustration surface in a safely comic, low-stakes target before the song turns more serious.
Middle verse turn
“I woke up crying in the bed”
This is the song's emotional hinge: the joking persona drops entirely for a moment of plain disclosure about crying and depressive affect, immediately followed by guilt over the reaction itself, which suggests shame around expressing vulnerability even to a partner.
Hook
“it can all go away, just shut yo eyes”
The chant-like repetition reads as both a comforting lullaby and a troubling wish for total erasure, ambiguous enough to function as either self-care or a darker impulse toward disappearing.
Third verse
The final verse abandons the confessional thread entirely, cramming in rapid pop-culture references and wordplay at a pace that feels almost manic, functioning as an escape hatch back into distraction after the exposure of the middle section.
Craft
- tonal whiplash
- The constant swing between comic non-sequiturs and sudden plain-spoken sadness mimics how intrusive thoughts and anxiety can puncture an otherwise composed exterior without warning.
- pop culture allusion as code
- References to cartoons, video games, and sitcoms are used almost as shorthand emotional states, letting the narrator name a feeling without naming it directly.
- repetition as incantation
- The hook's looping, minimal phrasing works less as a lyrical hook and more like a self-soothing mantra, its repetition mimicking the act of trying to talk oneself down.
- understatement
- Serious admissions are delivered with the same flat, comic cadence as jokes about hot dog carts or wigs, flattening the emotional register so the confession almost slips by unnoticed.
Reading it
The most persuasive reading treats the song as a portrait of masking: the narrator uses humor and reference-dense rapping as a defense against the depressive episode that briefly surfaces in the middle verse, and the hook's invitation to shut your eyes is less a comfort than an ambiguous wish for numbness or disappearance. An alternative reading takes the song at a lower stakes, as simply a loose, funny freestyle about daily annoyances where the sad verse is one mood among many rather than the emotional center -- but the placement of that verse right before the hook, and the deliberate return to jokes afterward, supports the heavier reading.
Context
Open Mike Eagle has been open in interviews and other songs about anxiety and depression, and this EP's title, referencing what happens when he tries to relax, points toward material engaging with mental health under a comic, reference-heavy surface. I do not have specific documented context about this song's recording or reception, so this is inferred from the lyric and his broader body of work rather than confirmed biographical detail.
Listen for
- the shift in tone and delivery pace between the confessional middle verse and the surrounding joke-heavy verses
- how flatly comic lines and genuinely sad lines are delivered with the same rhythmic ease
- the hook's repetitive, lullaby-like quality and whether it sounds comforting or unsettling to you
- the sheer density of pop culture references in the final verse compared to the plainer language of the middle section
About Open Mike Eagle
Michael W. Eagle II, better known by his pseudonym Open Mike Eagle, is an American rapper, record producer and comedian.
b. 1980 / Inglewood
Full biography and catalogue