“He'll make another record soon, almost certainly,” Pitchfork's Jayson Greene wrote of Christopher Owens while reviewing 2015. Chrissybaby Forever. He didn't. In 2017, the former Girls frontman's motorcycle collided with an SUV, leaving him bedridden and unable to afford medical treatment. A series of losses followed that would be unbearable for most people: his fiancée, his job, his apartment, his cat, his beloved guitar. At the bottom, he reached out to his former Girls bandmate Chet “JR” White for a reunion, but White barely responded to the sessions and died shortly after at the age of 40.
Owens seems to be doing better now, married with a new partner, but his new album, I want to run barefoot through your hairit is a travelogue of his journey to hell. It's Owens' most careful and deliberate solo album, and the pace rarely goes beyond a crawl. While Chrissybaby cram 16 songs into under an hour, Barefoot has about 10 songs playing at once. This makes sense: Chrissybaby recorded almost entirely by Owens, an approach less conducive to expansion than jamming with a band. Owens has some nice guitar work here, led by the incredible musical lead guitar of Derek Barber (of Perhapsy and Owens' last band Curls), and he allows himself the gospel crescendos and classic '70s album-rock grandeur that has not approached. from the girls' swan song Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
The physical toll Owens' ordeal has taken on him can be heard in his voice, which is deeper and rougher than before. Owens' singing is traditionally characterized by little rocking hiccups and vocal breaks, but here every note is articulated and sung with such purpose as if he's plucked each one individually from his throat. His attention to phrasing on ballads like “Distant Drummer” and the devastating gospel song “I Think About Heaven” make it easy to imagine him singing a jazz standard like “My Funny Valentine.” At times his voice glides from one note to the next a little too easily, suggesting that maybe a PhD was needed for Owens to sing the pop tunes rattling around in his head.
The lyrics are short on specifics, but Owens has always written as if he's plucking tried-and-true lines from the annals of pop history and pasting them together. It says as much about Owens' clarity of vision as his circumstances that “Things don't look so bad/Things don't look so sad” lands like a burst of redemptive divine light. With such immediate pain relief, this blunt and unpoetic writing style is a plus. In a pop song where empathy and honesty are key words, it's rare to hear a song as vengeful as “No Good,” which kicks off the album on a wild rampage against his ex-fiancée. “Fuck you, stay away/Look what you've done,” he croons. His refusal to empathize with what his ex might be feeling is kind of impressive. it's a breakup song in its purest form.
