Revelator — Phosphorescent
#365Songs: January 24th
In my late 20s, I wrote for a Chicago-based music zine that tried — and failed — to out-Pitchfork Pitchfork. I wanted to be friends with the bands, and approached interviews that way, only to feel the presence of the protective wall that exists between journalists and subjects. Trust, it turns out, is an earned commodity — obvious, of course, but not in this context where I was used to making friends fast and easy. And because I only had a few moments before, or after, a show, there was simply no time for trust-building. As a result, the job made me sad, ineffective.
Since then, I’ve interviewed hundreds of people with varied backgrounds. As a writer and documentary filmmaker, the process of building trust and rapport is vital to my success. So perhaps I’d be a much stronger music writer today than I was then, but I suspect not.
The bigger problem is I’m just not that sort of writer. I don’t draw lineages through samples or influences, don’t hear music through the construction of the song. Rather, I feel the music. A song pulls a mood or a memory, and suddenly I’m lost in another world soundtracked by the feeling. Here, I can write that way. Here, I can do whatever the fuck I want to do: there are no rules, barely an audience, and sometimes writing is nothing more than thinking, working through a problem, establishing perspective.
And that gets me to the artist Phosphorescent. Pay me to interview him, or write a feasible article about his music, and I’d struggle to get beyond my own feelings and contextual understanding of his music. He fueled late night, whiskey-clouded writing nights during my MFA years, powered my red-eyed late night road trips on blurry lit highways, his longer songs a temporal reference to how to time a run. And mostly important, his blend of melancholic country-fueled smoky vocals got me through my toughest times. Wolves was a funeral song, Los Angeles cracked me open on those long runs, Song for Zula welcomed us home to San Francisco when I crossed the Bay Bridge for the first time (my son Charlie, who was 2 at the time, said “again again again” for months), Hej! I’m Light made me cry in public at a concert a few months after my Mom died, Pretty Pt. 2’s meandering and monotonous sprawl zoned me out enough to help me write through tougher scenes.
Most folks don’t know Phosphorescent, and if they do it’s likely through Song for Zula. He’s fallen off in recent years, far less prolific. When I saw this morning that he’s dropping a new album soon, and listened to his first single a few times, I was hit once again with that feeling, that draw, that symbiotic melancholy.
This is why I listen to music for most of my waking hours. It’s not just about ADHD fuel, mood, noise, chaos — and yes, it is all of those things too — but it’s also to prevent numbness, to cut through the defensive layers and truly feel. If you know me, you’ll know how many artists trigger that feeling for me. But Phosphorescent is on a special shortlist of artists I can’t shake.
If you don’t know him, try. If you don’t like him, that’s ok too. We all have artists, tv shows, films that get us as much as we get them. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but you — and sometimes it doesn’t even need to make sense to you. That’s the beauty of art’s subjectivity. We bring in our own lived experiences and alter the meaning of everything.
I got tired of sadness
I got tired of all the madness
I got tired of being a badass all the time
It’s only survival
Only not dead upon arrival
Only ahead of every rival that we find
And we’ve ridden beyond where we could safely touch down
And we’re out in the void past where we could’ve had turned around
I tried my feet on the floor, tried to beat on the door
But it didn’t even make a sound
Got my heart open wide
But the city been shut down
It’s еasy to go, babe
It’s just an easy yes or no, babе
It’s just an easy way to throw away what we have
I don’t need a letter
I don’t need anybody better
I don’t need anybody ever, I never have
And you’ve ridden beyond where you could safely touch down
And you’re out in the void past where you could’ve had turned around
Hey, I told you before, I needed you more
But it didn’t even make a sound
I got my heart open wide
But the city been shut down
Now sooner or later
It’s just an empty elevator
Just the song of the revelator on every floor
Now how can I get it right?
I don’t even like what I write
I don’t even like what I like anymore
But I stand in the yard and watch the evening come down
And I shuffle the cards when all the idiots come around
Hey I told you before, I needed you more
But you didn’t even turn around
Got my heart open wide
But the city been shut down
I got my heart open wide
But the city been shut down
Hey, I told you before, I needed you more
But you couldn’t even turn around
Got my heart open wide
But the city been shut down
Got my heart open wide
But the city been shut down
Got my heart open wide
But the city been shut down
Got my heart open wide
But the city been shut down
