Monday 10/26: Julien Baker—"Faith Healer"
Today, we share our thoughts on a new song by the Tennessee singer-songwriter Julien Baker.
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him) and Eric Bennett (they/them). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. Now we’re, also a M-F newsletter about songs. Our format is simple: a link to a song and a short take from each of us about what we think of it. Each day of the week has a corresponding genre: Monday is indie, Tuesday is punk, Wednesday is hip-hop, Thursday is pop, and Friday is misc.
Today, we share our thoughts on a new song by the Tennessee singer-songwriter Julien Baker.
Julien Baker—"Faith Healer"
Eric Bennett:
Despite my love for both Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, and for Boygenius as a unit, I have long regarded Julien Baker as my least favorite aspect of it. I’ve never actively disliked her, but her music never grabbed me. Recently, though, it happened that I was distraught enough that her music came on and everything finally clicked. Her songs feel like hymns, partially because of their quiet, longing nature. Her new single “Faith Healer” finds her finally adding drums into the equation, the last push towards her feeling like a true rock act. The song is a triumph for Baker, and easily her most accessible work for people who aren't full of deep despair, but more ambiently sad. It has the same massive chorus that cries out to some higher force that the best parts of Turn Off the Lights does, but feels more solid and grounded, less effusive.
Eli Enis:
I, too, was never really sold on Julien Baker. I have a limited capacity for music that’s quietly powerful (I prefer loudly powerful) and Baker’s undeniably well-done yet one-note singer-songwriter material never gripped me in the way I needed it to. “Faith Healer” has definitely caught my eye at the store, but I can’t say that it’s fully sold me yet. I find Baker’s blunt poeticism to be her best quality as a songwriter, and the way she sings about addiction on here arrives with a gut-punch of beauty: “Oh, what I wouldn't give if it would take away the sting a minute / Everything I love, I trade it in / To feel it rush into my chest.”
That said, I think the song itself is kind of underwhelming. Sure, it adds percussion and some more robust instrumentals to her historically stark guitar ballads, but the hook feels a little lackluster to me and the song kind of just lumbers around in a halo of prettiness without ever building into anything truly grand and striking. The way people talk about Julien Baker makes me think my ears are broken sometimes, because I just don’t hear what’s so extraordinarily powerful about her music. But like I said, I’m intrigued by “Faith Healer” and I’m ready to give the new project a good-faith listen.