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Peter: We didn’t really talk about “Good News.”

Tyler: We owe it the proper time.

Peter: It’s great. Did I mention I like all of these songs?

I’ve heard this album about 100 times in the last two weeks.

Not really, but close.

Tyler: You’re a devotee.

“Good News” strikes me as one of those tracks where, if you’d never seen Baker live, and maybe were catching her as an opener for a favorite artist, you’d get hypnotized by that simple electric strum and she’d just nail you down with the vocals.  Commence Julien Baker fandom.

Peter: Yes! I love her voice. And she sings with herself here which is so great.

I like the little bit of distortion on her guitar.

It’s just another little gem. This album is full of them.

Tyler: The songs are so impressive that, blessedly, some people in charge heard the album and said “Needs no more.  Sell it.”

In other words, it’s a gift that nobody stepped in to say “Let’s really produce these tracks.”

Peter: Right. I think that’s true. There’s nothing to get in the way of these songs, and the album really benefits from that austerity because the songs are so good.

No need to gild the lily!

Tyler: “Something”—God love her for having the cheek to name a song that—is killer.  The climax of the song, her belting, man, damn.  She got me there.

Peter: The second half of this album really kicks things up a notch.

A lot of these songs have little glimpses into her life. Here she’s in a parking lot watching someone (a lover? A friend?) drive away, lamenting the fact that she didn’t say something before the person left. “Asking aloud why you’re leaving/But the pavement won’t answer me.” I can’t believe she was 19 when she wrote this! It’s absurd.

Tyler: That line is prefaced by a line that wowed me.  “I just let the parking lot swallow me up/Choking your tires and kicking up dust.”

19.  Absurd is right.  What a phenom.

I’m just like picturing young rookie Baker on the cover of “Singer-Songwriter Illustrated.”

Peter: Ha! Yes, she’d go in the first round.

Okay. Next is “Rejoice.”

Tyler: A hymn, no?

Peter: Yes.

It’s a very special song.

Last time, you mentioned that you thought the album was sad. Which it is! She talks about wanting to be dead, and addiction, and heartbreak.

But, it’s so alive.

It brought to mind the Denis Johnson short story “Car Crash While Hitchhiking.” Have you read Jesus’ Son?

Tyler: Can’t say that I have.

Peter: The narrator of the story is involved in a car crash and recounts his time at the ER in the wake of the crash and the moment a woman is told her husband is dead.

“Down the hall came the wife. She was glorious, burning. She didn’t know yet that her husband was dead. We knew. That’s what gave her such power over us. The doctor took her into a room with a desk at the end of the hall, and from under the closed door a slab of brilliance radiated as if, by some stupendous process, diamonds were being incinerated in there. What a pair of lungs! She shrieked as I imagined an eagle would shriek. It felt wonderful to be alive to hear it! I’ve gone looking for that feeling everywhere.”

Tyler: Phew.

Peter: That’s how I feel about this song. When Julien sings/wails, “Somebody’s listening at night with the ghosts of my friends when I pray/Asking why did you let them leave and then make me stay?” She’s glorious, burning. Oh, to be that alive!

Tyler: Powerful parallel, my friend.

Peter: “Lift my voice/That I was made!” You’re right, saying it’s a hymn.

We haven’t broken it down too much, but there’s lots and lots of Christian imagery and reference points on this album. It’s not necessary to understand it all to appreciate the album, but it’s a subtext that runs through the whole thing.

“Vessels.” 

I mentioned last time that two of these songs were recorded with a different engineer. This is the other one. This one also sounds like Sigur Rós. Which is a good thing. I like Sigur Rós.

It’s very atmospheric. I suppose a lot of them are.

It has drums!

Tyler: There’s real comfort in the way this one plays.  Much of this album carries a kind of evocative chill, but this song sounds warm.

Peter: She gives us a little bit of a break between the albums two big tent poles. As I’ve been heard to mention, I like all of these songs, but there’s something truly special about “Rejoice,” and the album’s closer, “Go Home.”

This is a stunning track. It’s absolutely gorgeous.

Tyler: Stark and spiritual.

Peter: Like “Rejoice,” the lyrics are sad, but to hear her sing them is a gift.

“I know that my body is just dirty clothes/I’m tired of washing my hands/God, I wanna go home.”

Tyler: Listening as a former drunk leaves me recalling the darkest nights I knew a few lifetimes ago.  Lonely, alone, and thinking about death as escape.

Julien here sings of similar dire times.  And she devastates you.

Peter: Yes. That’s right. It’s very raw. It’s brutally honest.

Tyler: There’s importance in that piano coda, though.  With or without the folded-in recording of a sermon, those notes are lovely.  They’re her reasons to go on.

Peter: That coda is crazy!

It’s a modern Christian hymn called, “In Christ Alone.” I was not familiar with it.

But that radio chatter was picked up on the pre-amp. It was an accident!

I mean, obviously they punched it up in the mix, but still!

Tyler: I did not realize that she was playing a separate piece of music as the album-closer.  What a serene way to conclude.

Peter: This album is a masterpiece. A triumph. I said I’d put it in my top fifteen albums last time. Honestly? It’s probably in my top ten.

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