Lust For Life
On a rooftop in Brooklyn recently, Christopher Owens stood on stage with his guitar, a bouquet of flowers, and songs about sadness, solitude, and survival.
“No, not another love song,” he sang with his head hanging, his signature stance. “Not one more song where I'm pretending everything will be okay.”
These words open Owens’ album “I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair,” released last autumn. It was his first album in many years, and his biggest since the breakup of his band Girls — a brief, brilliant band that introduced the world to his music and personal suffering.
Owens is the bard of sensitivity and his work has been more meaningful to me than that of any other artist. It has been sixteen years since Girls burst onto the Pitchfork scene with “Album,” a bright and beautiful record that perfectly captured the psych-garage scene of that era in San Francisco. Throughout those many years — beginning with my final year as a teenager and now rounding the corner toward middle age — I’ve returned endlessly to Owens’ work for comfort and companionship.
Owens’ return to the stage is a triumph for him, and for those of us who have never disconnected ourselves from his personal and profound work.
