---
title: "My Friend, Scoobert"

meaning: "Political dread and overdrawn brain: Rome fallen, lead in the water, body under siege: then a plea to Scoobert the persona: hanging on, will you be my friend?"

year: 2017
release: "Finding $D"
releaseType: "album"

artist: "Scoobert Doobert"
artistId: "#scoobert"

credits: "Written, performed, mixed, and mastered by Luke Francis Walton."

spotify: "https://open.spotify.com/album/1RD1nblfKnDDT42FXZ0eZL"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xfTx5gDQ6Q"
officialVideo: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xfTx5gDQ6Q"
apple: "https://music.apple.com/us/album/finding-%24d-remastered/1506552414"
bandcamp: "https://scoobertdoobert.bandcamp.com/album/finding-d-lp"

themes: ["Scoobert Doobert", "loneliness", "politics", "Finding $D", "friendship", "2017"]

isrc: QZK6Q2207676
isrcSource: soundexchange
lyrics: |
  He's a motherfucking senator
  Telling me to live in the real world
  Rome has fallen
  God is dead
  Our water's full of lead
  What a fine world

  He's a tyrant-loving elephant
  Ivory is a worthy commodity
  Arjuna, don't kill again
  Baby, steal your mind against deities
  These deities

  Got no time
  Got no space
  My shitty little brain is overdrawn

  Hanging on
  I barely am
  I could use a friend
  Not alone
  Though I'm sure I am
  Would you hold my hand
  This pressing silence
  Silence all wrong
  Hanging on
  I barely am
  Will you be my friend?

  Be my friend

  He's the model of minority
  Saying we should round up an shoot em
  History of sodomy
  Negotiate the right to my body
  This body

  Got no time
  Got no space
  My shitty little brain is overdrawn

  Hanging on
  I barely am
  I could use a friend
  Not alone
  Though I'm sure I am
  Would you hold my hand
  This pressing silence
  Silence all wrong
  Hanging on
  I barely am
  Will you be my friend?

  If we could love, then we could be friends
  If we could love, then we all could be friends
  If we could love, then we could be friends
  If we could love, then we all could be friends
  If we could love, then we could be friends
  If we could love, then we all could be friends
  If we could love, then we could be friends
  If we could love, then we'd be my friend

  Hanging on
  I barely am
  I could use a friend
  Not alone
  Though I'm sure I am
  Would you hold my hand
  This pressing silence
  Silence all wrong
  Hanging on
  I barely am
  Will you be my friend?
  Will you be my friend?

draft: false

---

Track three on [*Finding $D*](/albums/finding-d-remastered/), Luke solo, and the debut LP's first turn from gag into **political loneliness**. The title names the ask. Scoobert is the invented friend, the persona the project would wear for years, and here he's the friend you make up when the world won't hold you.

The verses are 2017 collapse poetry: Nietzsche, fallen Rome, and Flint-era poison (*our water's full of lead*) stacked next to a glancing *Arjuna, don't kill again*, which borrows the Bhagavad Gita's pacifism-versus-duty knot. Culture-war noise and the *right to my body* land in the same breath. The pre-chorus boils all of it down to a *shitty little brain* that's *overdrawn*, which squares with the [Last Day Deaf](https://lastdaydeaf.com/91-qa-with-scoobert-doobert/)-era talk of raw chaos next to precise moments.

The actual song lives in the chorus: *hanging on, I barely am... will you be my friend?* The bridge loops *if we could love, then we could be friends* until it slides into *then we'd be my friend*: friendship with the self, by way of the character. Same move as [*What a Velma What a Night*](/songs/what-a-velma-what-a-night/), only darker.

A live version later appeared on *Live from the Void* (2020). FEiN rerecorded the song as [*Friend*](/songs/friend/) (**2018** single): shorter, theatrical pop, no Scoobert in the title, *steel your mind* and *though I know I am* in the chorus.

Pairs with [*My Meddling Kids (Hallelujah Sexy)*](/songs/my-meddling-kids-hallelujah-sexy/) on the same LP and leads toward [*Damned*](/songs/damned/) and [*Mother of Exile*](/songs/mother-of-exile/) before the lore dump on [*$WAMI$*](/albums/wami/).

---