LISTEN: Cory Branan, “Pocket of God”

Artist: Cory Branan
Hometown: Memphis, Tennessee
Song: “Pocket of God”
Album: When I Go I Ghost
Release Date: October 14, 2022
Label: Blue Élan Records

In Their Words: “I tried to get as much of a story as I could in there, with someone in the hot seat. You don’t know who he’s singing to until the end, and it’s a story of what happened to someone he cared deeply about. That song began as a sweet line about somebody thinking he picked the pocket of God to have met someone, and I thought, ‘That’s too Hallmark,’ so I tried to balance it with a Raymond Carver sensibility, where definitions aren’t the same for everyone, where the narrator is untrustworthy. I’m a big fan of Randy Newman, the songwriter king of untrustworthy narrators. And this song is an exception on the album in that I didn’t try to counteract the dark lyrics with brighter music. I stayed there, I painted an open void, then kept the music staring right there with me. The string arrangement helps with that — put the headphones on to hear the ear candy in those layered strings from Matt Combs! And that’s Spencer Cullum (Steelism) on steel guitar holding drone notes through the whole thing.” — Cory Branan

Photo Credit: Jamie Harmon