David Bazan’s Curse Your Branches (9/1, Barsuk) is the Pedro The Lion/Headphones main man’s first full-length under his own name. We spoke with him about its “Bless This Mess,” which debuts in this week’s ‘Gum Drop.
“Bless This Mess” covers a lot of territory — dysfunctional families, alcoholism, mirrors, forgiveness, history. What inspired it?
The song is largely autobiographical. So any narrative in the song reflects actual events. Though I may have embellished a bit. But the main lyrical gimmick is sort of a self-conscious and hopeful interpretation of the Beatitudes, which I have an uneasy relationship with as the narrative tends to illustrate.