Listen to the new album by Thee Male Nurse and read a track-by-track breakdown!
Today, we are extremely excited to bring you the premiere of the new album by Ottawa-based Thee Male Nurse! The album is called Life Is More Than Anyone Can Say It’s Beautiful and will be out on August 8 via Dirt Cult Records. The album was recorded over the course of 6 months by Sean Cooke, who has played in Slow Dawn and the Heavy Medicine Band.
The album features six new tracks that explore mental health, parenthood, social media, embracing the cringe, masculinity, and so much more over instrumentation that effortlessly blend together elements from folk, punk, and powerpop.
Thee Male Nurse is the solo project of Davey Quesnelle, who has played in tons of rad bands including Peach Kelli Pop, The Million Dollar Marxists, and Matty Grace and The Rumination Year and we caught up with Davey to hear the stories behind each of the tracks. You can pre-order Life Is More Than Anyone Can Say It's Beautiful right here. Listen to Life Is More Than Anyone Can Say It’s Beautiful and read Davey’s track-by-track breakdown below!
Life Is More Than Anyone Can Say It's Beautiful Track-by-Track Breakdown
“The Act of Crowdkilling”
This track I wrote as a tribute to QC folk artist Myriam Gendron and how I felt my ADHD made it very difficult for me to stay seated still and attentively during her concert at the National Arts Centre. I love her music so much and she was a huge influence on my writing of this record, and this song is me emulating her, but through my own sloppy attempts at fingerpicking. The bridge in the song was inspired directly by SILLY, my buddy Josiah’s musical project. I wanted to do something skate-punky, and this was as close as we could get.
“Crying at the Gas Pump”
I wrote this song in an afternoon after the pressures of parenthood had reached a boiling point that ended up with me having a mental breakdown in an Ultramar parking lot. Having 2 (and a third on the way) kids has been the biggest struggle of my adult life, but also the most rewarding thing I’ve done; it makes this music shit look like a joke. I really wanted to keep it light-hearted and classic rock summer-y with the keys and the falsetto backups. The music video for this song was made by my good friend Dan/DRONE.FOREVER from the Ottawa psych rock band SLOW DAWN. We went into the woods in Arnprior to film me messing around in the pouring rain and he took the title of the song at face value by splicing in images from My Strange Addiction of a woman addicted to drinking gasoline. I gave him full artistic control, and this is where we ended up.
“Saved By The Bell Hooks”
This one is about the endless search for external gratification/validation yet finding that quality completely revolting in others. You know when you cringe out loud at someone’s Instagram post and think, “I’m better than this, how could someone be so cringe?” Sometimes, someone’s online persona can only amount to a haircut or a cool outfit. It’s a mirror onto itself. Be better than that - be the cool shit you want to see in the world. As a 41-year-old dad, I have become the cringe that I myself hate; it’s too late for me, unfortunately. Performing rituals to protect ourselves. I still got old.
“Mes Petits Souvenirs”
Ever reach that point in a relationship where you know it’s over but you’re still holding on to something, the “remorse of a loss of a feeling” to quote LJG, or more aptly, from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: “Are we like those bored couples you feel sorry for in restaurants? Are we the dining dead? I can’t stand the idea of us being a couple of people think that about.” This song was originally written in English in 2010, when I wrote and posted a song every day on Tumblr. You can find those songs on my Bandcamp. It was a difficult year for me, for many reasons. I took the words in a 2025 lens and made them French and a bit more wistful instead of spiteful. I think it turned out great. I still haven’t met the person who plays lap steel on this; his name is Morgan Husty and he has recently played with Sam Coffey on his solo record. I owe Morgan a huge debt of gratitude for his performance. Very lucky that he is the neighbour of Sean, who recorded him doing this in an afternoon in one take.
“Into the Ground”
Doubting your ability to be a father when you had such a contentious relationship with your own. Masculinity and patriarchy are also such a stain on humanity that it really scares me to have to slip into a sort of role that is expected by society. It also makes me question my own ability to give love and receive it, as love has often been something I have never been shown to be without condition. Sometimes it almost feels like it’s too much, but then I remember their little faces and their smiles and their love that they show me and I’m reminded of why I am so fucking lucky. My wife plays violin on this song and I tricked her into performing on the record by tagging her in an online post, which she then could not argue against.
“Life’s A Bit”
I wrote as an exercise concurrently with my friend Todd, the singer from Imploders; we decided to both write a song with that title and see where it got us (I’m still waiting to hear his version… Todd, you’re being called out). I wanted something a bit more fun, a bit more positive to end the record on. I tried my best to give it that T. Rex kind of saucy flair… It’s about being happy with what little life may offer you because at the end of the day, life is more than anyone can say it's meaningful, life is hard, life is shit, life’s a bit (and I’m sticking to it).