Ten years ago, a relatively unknown Australian woman in a shitty clown suit stared into a camera and told us she was a joke. She wasn't being humble. She was being prophetic. When Courtney Barnett released the video for Pedestrian at Best in early 2015, the indie rock world was already leaning in, hushed and expectant, after the slow-burn success of her double EP. What they got instead was a four-minute abrasive, fuzzed-out existential crisis that basically told everyone to back the hell off.
It’s weirdly comforting, isn't it? That a song about failing to live up to expectations became the very thing that cemented her as one of the most vital songwriters of the decade.
The "One-Take" Chaos of a Modern Classic
There’s a specific kind of energy in Courtney Barnett Pedestrian at Best that you just don't hear in "clean" studio records anymore. It sounds like it’s falling apart at the seams. That's because, in a lot of ways, it was.
Barnett wrote the lyrics at the absolute last minute. Most artists spend months agonizing over every syllable of a lead single, but she reportedly hadn't even sung these words out loud until she stepped into the Head Gap studio in Preston, Victoria. What you hear on the record is essentially her first time ever performing the song. It was recorded in a single take. That "raw" sound isn't an aesthetic choice; it’s the sound of a person discovering the rhythm of their own anxiety in real-time.
The band—Bones Sloane on bass and Dave Mudie on drums—pushed the tempo into a territory Barnett hadn't really explored on earlier tracks like "Avant Gardener." It’s frantic. It’s loud. It’s got a "blatant Nirvana steal" (as The Guardian put it back then), but it’s filtered through a Melbourne lens that makes it feel entirely new.
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What Most People Get Wrong About the Lyrics
A lot of critics at the time labeled this a "diss track" aimed at the music industry. They weren't totally wrong, but they were missing the point. While lines like "Give me all your money and I'll make some origami, honey" definitely poke fun at the commercial side of art, the real "you" in the song is much more fluid.
Sometimes she’s talking to the audience.
Sometimes she’s talking to a lover.
Most of the time, she’s clearly talking to herself.
"I love you, I hate you, I'm on the fence, it all depends whether I'm up, I'm down, I'm on the mend."
That opening line isn't just clever wordplay; it’s a perfect encapsulation of the "21st-century condition." We're all on the fence about everything. We’re all having "existential time crises" that daylight savings won’t fix. When she yells, "Put me on a pedestal and I'll only disappoint you," she’s preemptively shattering the glass ceiling the indie press was trying to build for her. It’s a defensive crouch disguised as a rock anthem.
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The Sad Clown and the Hype Cycle
Let’s talk about that music video. It's iconic for a reason. Directed by Charlie Ford, it features Barnett as a struggling "Clown of the Year" winner (specifically 2013) wandering through a dreary amusement park, watching a new, shinier clown take her place.
It’s incredibly literal, yet it works because Courtney’s deadpan performance is so genuinely miserable. There's no "performer" vanity here. She looks like she wants to be anywhere else. By playing the "sad clown," she turned herself into a metaphor for the fleeting nature of fame before she even truly had it.
Why the Song Still Matters in 2026
Honestly, looking back from 2026, the song feels even more relevant than it did in 2015. We live in an era of "main character energy" and curated perfection. Here comes Courtney Barnett, 11 years ago, shouting about how she’s "underworked and oversexed" and "saturated analogue."
She’s the anti-rockstar.
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She proved that you don't need a polished "vocal" performance to make a masterpiece. Her sprechgesang (that half-spoken, half-sung delivery) is the only way these lyrics could possibly work. If she had actually "sung" the chorus, it would have lost the bite. It needed to be a holler. It needed to be messy.
Key Takeaways for Your Next Listen
If you're revisiting Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit today, pay attention to these small details in Courtney Barnett Pedestrian at Best:
- The Internal Monologue: The phrase "saturated analogue" is such a brilliant way to describe a brain that can't keep up with digital speed.
- The Guitar Tone: It’s not just distortion; it’s feedback used as an instrument. It mirrors the "rats back inside my head."
- The Structure: Notice how the song doesn't really have a bridge in the traditional sense. It just builds and builds until it hits a wall of noise.
The best way to experience the song today isn't through a "best of" playlist. Go back to the original 2015 music video or find a live version from a KEXP session. You can hear the actual sweat in the performance.
If you want to dive deeper into how she crafted the rest of that debut album, you should check out the production notes for "Small Poppies" or "Depreston." They offer a stark contrast to the high-octane energy of "Pedestrian," showing just how much range she was sitting on while everyone was busy calling her a slacker.
Next Steps:
Go listen to the live version of this track from her 2014 KEXP session at The Triple Door. It was recorded before the album even dropped, and you can see the exact moment the band realizes they've caught lightning in a bottle.