Send A Prayer My Way is a powerful exploration of queerness, addiction and identity
BY AMELIA JONES, IMAGE BY EBRU YILDIZ
With Send A Prayer My Way, Julien Baker and Torres step into the dusty boots of country music, not to imitate it but to quietly rewire it. Both drawing on their Southern roots, they deliver a soul bearing album that honours the genre’s tradition of storytelling, reclaiming it through a queer, confessional lens.
Dirt is an early highlight with an emotional anchor. Over minimal pedal steel and fingerpicked guitar, Baker delivers the devastating line: “Spend your whole life getting clean / Just to wind up in the dirt.” It’s a meditation on recovery, relapse and mortality that feels both personal and universal. For a minute, my brain just shut off and listened – the kind of silence where a song gets past your defences. The duo’s harmonies ache with sincerity, holding just enough space for the listener’s own grief.
Later in the tracklist, Downhill Both Ways hits with a different kind of emotional clarity – less despair, more defiant acceptance. The opening carries a distinctly sad girl core energy: hushed, melancholic, and emotionally charged. The music is sparse and rich – gentle acoustic strums drift beneath the rhythm that moves at a slow deliberate pace. Torres’ voice brings a smokier contrast to Baker’s airier delivery, the two weaving in and out of each other like they are sharing the same thoughts. There’s a quiet confidence in the arrangement – no dramatic build, just a steady, low burning emotional landscape that mirrors the song’s title.
The entire album balances stark lyrical vulnerability with deceptively simple arrangements: banjos, dobros, and brushed drums that never overpower the message. Songs like Tuesday and Bottom Of The Bottle sit within familiar structures but are infused with deeply personal themes: queerness, rejection, faith and forgiveness.
What makes Send A Prayer My Way so moving isn’t just the songwriting or production – it’s the emotional weight it carries. This is a quiet, often quite depressing record, so be warned if you aren’t ready to sit with some heavy feelings. The themes of grief, addiction, identity and faith are tough, and Baker and Torres don’t try to tie everything up neatly. Instead, they let those feelings breathe. It’s not a flashy departure from country traditions, but a subtle, honest expansion of what the genre can hold. This record has made room for emotions and experiences that are often left out of the conversation.
You can listen to Send A Prayer My Way now.
DIVA magazine celebrates 31 years in print in 2025. If you like what we do, then get behind LGBTQIA media and keep us going for another generation. Your support is invaluable.
