039 :: BAREFOOT

Listen to "039 :: BAREFOOT" on Spreaker.

Featuring

"Beautiful Horses" by Christopher Owens, from I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair, released by True Panther Records in 2024. Listen / Buy direct

Transcript

Let's end the year with a little tenderness. Because what better time is there to open up and show how you feel, to bare your heart and say all the things that so frequently go unsaid.

♪ Please don't nag at me ♪ Okay, perhaps not the sweetest opening line. ♫ I will be strong for you ♫ Now that's a little better. ♪ Don't say you're worried ♪ That's reassuring, even. ♫ Don't say you're scared ♫ And now we're getting somewhere. So let's put it all on the table. Because in the end, it's all about love. And "love is enough."

It's easy to feel like this song is stumbling over its words just to express a simple message, but sometimes the simple message is all there is to say. And with a message like this, the words are kind of beside the point. For the real expressive instrument here is the vocal delivery, the naked vulnerability in the singer's voice, which says so much without having to say anything at all.

And then, in the song's midsection, the expressive power of that voice gets transposed to the guitar. And maybe it's just because I hear so little guitar-driven music these days, but man, does this solo ever hit. As it weaves its way through licks and arpeggios and distorted harmonics, it's like its tracing the contours of the singer's feelings, in the clearest expression yet of what they really want to say.

And then, a digression about Christopher Reeve. Because this song isn't some perfectly constructed poem. It's impulsive and weird and sometimes vulgar and a little bit all over the place. But you know what? It's authentic and heartfelt and saying exactly what it thinks.

Or maybe it is a perfectly constructed poem, as it closes with this bewitching simile between the singer's hands and beautiful horses, galloping into the distance.

I'll be honest: I don't understand this song, why it works, its unusual magic. But I know how it makes me feel, and maybe that's its true secret: to be able to convey through words a feeling that's beyond them, and to not let language get in the way of saying what you mean.

Liner Notes

I first came across the work of Christopher Owens through his former band Girls, and their excellent 2011 record Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Owens effectively disbanded the group shortly after the release of that record, in 2012. In 2020, Chet "JR" White, the band's other main member, died. In 2024, Owens released I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair, his first album of new music in nine years.