Julien Baker at Brooklyn Steel
photo by Amanda Hatfield

Julien Baker plays new song, covers Big Star on Isol-Aid livestream (watch)

Julien Baker did her first quarantine livestream just over a week ago, and she did a second last night for Isol-Aid’s “Lunch Without Borders” benefit for Support Act, which Gordi curated the lineup of. She opened her Tuesday set by acknowledging the sad death of John Prine from coronavirus complications, saying, “I found out right before this that John Prine died, and that makes me so sad, and it makes me really upset about what’s happening.” Then, like she teased in an Instagram story earlier in the day, she covered Big Star’s classic “Thirteen,” something she’s done before, but it felt no less sweet and intimate streaming on Instagram than any previous version.

After doing a couple of older b-sides, “Red Door” and “Distant Solar System,” Julien played a new song, “Mercy.” “It’s a new one,” she said, introducing it, “it’s not newly written, but it’s not on a record, or anywhere. And it’s a song about other people showing you how to be a better person by being better people than you, at you, which requires a lot of humility, which is an important and necessary lesson, and probably one of many that we’re all learning.”

Meanwhile, as a few sharp-eyed viewers pointed out, Men’s Health magazine was among those watching (and digging) the performance, which you can watch in full below.