The Streets release coronavirus-inspired single ‘Where The F*#K Did April Go’

‘Where the F*#K Did April Go’ is the B-side to last month’s Tame Impala-collab ‘Call My Phone Thinking I’m Doing Nothing Better’. It’s not slated to appear on the upcoming Streets mixtape, None Of Us Are Getting Out Of This Life Alive.

Streets leader Mike Skinner goes it alone on the new single, which carries the influence of UK garage and hip hop. In typical Skinner fashion, the lyrics balance the philosophical with the banal; the petty with the grandiose.

The track directly engages with the current crisis. The most obvious reference appears in the first verse: “Whoever said people can’t change the world has never ate an uncooked bat.” Skinner flits between sarcasm and paranoia throughout. He underline the impotence of slogans like “We’re all in this together,” while acknowledging his own failure to grapple with the magnitude of what’s going on.

“My mind is as shallow as a paddling pool,” he announces early on. Later he admits to being “Scared to fuck what fate will throw.” Meanwhile, the triplet, “Kant said ‘to be is to do’ / Nietzsche ‘to do is to be’ / Frank Sinatra, ‘do-be-do,’” is one of his finest to date.

Skinner announced the mixtape None Of Us Are Getting Out Of This Life Alive in early April. The project is due for release on July 10 and will feature a range of high-profile collaborators. These include UK punk rockers IDLES, London MC Ms Banks, viral star and Skinner progeny Jimothy Lacoste, as well as Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker.

Skinner has also indicated a new studio album will follow the mixtape. It’d be the first official album from The Streets since 2011’s Computers and Blues. That record was described as the final Streets album, however Skinner revived the project in 2017 to release the singles ‘Burn Bridges’ and ‘Sometimes I Hate My Friends More Than My Enemies’.