M & J’s “Kindness Is Back in Fashion” asks the listener to hug their son, hug their political enemy, and stop signalling virtue, in the voice of someone worn down by the world who has not lost the will to repair it. “Go home and hug your son” is the line the song keeps returning to.
“Back in fashion” treats kindness as a cycle: “I can see the path clearly” and “This isn’t an order / It’s just a thought,” and the second line takes the certainty out of the first. “Stop the niggling and virtue signaling” is what the song asks for, and “we all need to play it blinder” is the line that reveals the cost: kindness is being asked for as a form of deliberate blindness.
The song ends in the same register it began. “Go and be nice today / You’ll find you also have a better day” is the closing prescription, and the song’s last act is the listener doing a kind thing. The kitchen table is where the song was sung. The listener is on the way to the rest of the world.
