Given that the year is only a few days old I've found that there aren't many new albums I'd like to write about quite yet. In the mean time, listen to this track that Phosphorescent (singer-songwriter Matthew Houck) released back in December in anticipation of his new album, Muchacho, due out in March. The song is called "Song for Zula."



The last original work that Houck released was the 2010 album, Here's to Taking it Easy. That album was musically inspired by 70's country and lyrically inspired by life on the road, failing at relationships, and rather ambivalent feelings toward the city of Los Angeles. The last track on that album, actually called "Los Angeles," was the pinnacle of all three of those themes and saw Houck clawing his way through a heart-breaking country anthem, complete with soaring choral counter-point vocals and an angry overly-long electric guitar solo that might have made Neil Young nod like a proud father. In it, Houck seemingly bid adieu to Los Angeles, to the road, and to love.


Phosphorescent picks up on "Song for Zula" on a completely different planet. Gone is the shambling earthy country-rock of Houck's last two records, replaced by a sound that is distinctly surreal. Between the echoing snares, the meandering synths, and Houck's voice detached from it all, he practically sounds as if he's floating on the brink of existence.

The lyrics begin with an homage to the classic Johnny Cash song, "Ring of Fire," when Houck sings: "Some say love is a burning thing/ that it makes a fiery ring/ oh but I know love as a fading being/ just as fickle as a feather in a stream." The melody has a sound that is timeless and implacable, falling somewhere between Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and the aforementioned "Ring of Fire" without ever actually becoming either of those songs.

Houck goes on to detail his thoughts about love in a way that not only suggests he's disenchanted with it or discouraged by it, but that he respects it and fears it as a power that brings men to their knees, saps them of their strength, and leaves them, evidently, nothing more than hollow husks floating in the ether. See: "Yeah and then I saw love/ disfigure me/ into something I am not recognizing" and "You see the cage, it called/ I said 'come on in'/ I will not open myself up this way again."

Houck repeats the homage to "Ring of Fire" again on the final verse before switching the punchline to "oh but I know love/ as a caging being/ just a killer come to call from some awful dream." Despite the pacific sound of the song, the narrator doesn't seem content to allow love to conquer him. ("I will not lay like this for days now upon end." "See honey, I am not some broken thing/ I do not lay here in the dark waiting for thee.")

The song ends, however, with the revelation that, despite Houck's efforts to throw off the debilitating effects of love, he isn't exactly unshackled yet:

"Ah and all you folks, you come to see/ you just stand there in the glass looking at me/ but my heart is wild and my bones are steel/ and I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free."

Like an animal in captivity, once love has you, it probably isn't very likely to let you go without a fight.