On Send a Prayer My Way, Julien Baker and Mackenzie Scott, who performs as Torres, are falling off the wagon and staring at its wheels; they’re reckoning with regret; they’re wrestling hateful mothers. Longtime listeners of the two artists know that they often lay their struggles at the forefront of their music, from prying at religion to coming to terms with queerness to looking up from a bottle’s bottom.
But here, they come at these themes from a new angle. About five years ago, Scott floated the concept of a country record to Baker, a la Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings—and was surprised when she said yes. “I was worried that Julien would say no, and I cannot stand rejection,” Scott told Garden & Gun. “So I framed it as, ‘Wouldn’t that be hilarious if we made a country record?’ And Julien was like, ‘Oh, hell yeah, I’m gonna send you some demos.’”
Country music played a formative role in both singers’ lives: Scott grew up in Georgia, surrounded by church music and ’90s country; Baker grew up in Tennessee on a steady diet of Merle Haggard and George Jones. (You can check out the duo’s “Cuntry” playlists to see some lasting favorites.) But for the length of their respective careers, they’ve stuck to the rock/indie nexus.
Send a Prayer My Way, the result of their country collaboration, is an examination of religion, drugs, and love set in working-class Southern neighborhoods—both a tribute to their upbringings and an effort to reimagine the genre. At times, the blend of their individual rock styles with country creates something fresh, but some efforts feel more pastiche than inventive.
The album’s obsessed with love, in every iteration—and how much you can make peace with it. Scott opens “Tuesday,” a slow-moving and tender paean to the titular woman, with adoration. But as the song reveals itself to be about queer desire, it also reveals the challenges its narrator faces: the hateful response from her crush’s mother and the mournful self-excoriation that results, all grounded by Baker’s accompaniment on a resonant dobro. “Sugar in the Tank,” meanwhile, is nothing if not self-assured. As Baker repeats “I love you” at the start of each line, underscored by banjo and a Hammond organ, the song ramps up in passion, insistent and rollicking. When it breaks into the chorus, the pair’s voices come together, their twangy vocals layering in an earnest and honest country-pop element with tongue-in-cheek sultriness (“Put a little sugar in the tank,” a nod to queerness too) that cools down cleanly on “I’ll love you all the way.” They thread classic imagery beside the love declarations: They’re “tied up on the train tracks,” “strung out on the drying rack,” and “sitting outside with the engine runnin’.”
