Ezra Furman Unveils “Power of the Moon”

Renowned multi-disciplinary artist Ezra Furman has released the new “Power of the Moon” official video, an existentialist wrestling match with whoever’s in charge of the universe. Tinged with psychedelic 60s guitar licks, bouncing percussion, and Ezra’s signature lyrical poetry, this is the latest cut off her 10th studio album Goodbye Small Head (Bella Union), out May 16, and is available to pre-order here.

Ezra shares about “Power of the Moon”: “I took over five years writing this song. I’m not saying that makes it good, but it does mean that it means a lot to me. It’s another in my series of songs that make sweeping declarations about “the human mind” (cf. “Ordinary Life,” “Poor Girl A Long Way From Heaven”).

The lyric is me taking on a problem I’ve had all my life: I believe in God and I can’t explain why to anyone; I don’t even understand it myself. I have no evidence, no argument and no doubt. I think it might just be the kind of brain that I have, one with a need to “take the frame from the painting / and let the colors bleed out into the room.” I love a diffuse God, one who is everywhere, underlying everything, and who absolutely does not fit into my little consciousness with all its rational rules. My God makes no sense. That’s one thing I love about her. That’s how I know she’s much bigger than anything we could have invented.

When things stop making sense, that’s when the world of night has its hooks in you. That’s when the moon takes over. You wake up one day and you realize you can never really understand anything, and then you’re into the poetic, under the power of the moon.

This spirituality of mine has, annoyingly, not alleviated the existentialist nausea I’ve always felt. I’m overwhelmed by this God-haunted world. The train is on its way to flatten you. The blues come around to devastate you. But I find myself enjoying this nauseous life anyway. Especially when we get a good drum machine going and Jorgen plays a hypnotic bass line and then Sam and Ben come in with their perfect parts and existence feels like a real cool time.

Amazingly, somewhere within me I believed that this could add up to a hit song. God, what’s my problem?”