Ezra Furman has never shied away from the raw, the sacred, or the chaotic. But with Goodbye Small Head—her new album described as “twelve variations on losing control”—she dives deeper into the uncontainable than ever before. Written in the throes of emotional, physical, and spiritual upheaval, the record is a fever dream of orchestral emo, cracked-open lyrics, and haunted catharsis. Ahead of its release, we spoke with Furman about the storms that shaped it, the beauty of letting go, and why she’s done pretending control is possible.
BM: Goodbye Small Head is described as twelve variations on losing control. What drew you to explore that theme so deeply?
It’s probably because I’m always on the verge of losing control, letting my fragile mind collapse into disorder. It’s like a dark canyon I’m always dancing toward and away from. I got the feeling that right at the edge of that canyon is where the most beautiful and educational things happen. I think I got tired of fighting to avoid the loss of control. Not only worn out, but bored, too. I wasn’t learning enough. And anyway, it’s not avoidable. We all lose control sometimes, eventually.
You’ve said these songs were written in the midst of the storm rather than recollected in tranquility. How did that change your creative process compared to previous records?
I suppose that statement really only applies to a few of the songs. The first two tracks on the record, “Grand Mal” and “Sudden Storm” both came over me on the same day. I wrote them in a mad fever and I couldn’t calm down. It rather scared me. Something was surging through me. And the lyrics were about seizures, electricity surging through and overpowering the human body. “You Mustn’t Show Weakness” was a little bit like that, too, and “Slow Burn” and “Strange Girl.” But mostly it was those first two tracks. I felt overpowered by them, or by some force that told me what to write. I was shaking.
The album incorporates orchestral elements, samples, and what you’ve called “orchestral emo prog-rock.” How did you arrive at this particular sound?
I love cellos and violas and shit. We used a lot of cello on Transangelic Exodus, and I always wanted to get back to exploring those orchestral string instruments. But then we did Twelve Nudes which was meant to be garage rock. And then I just wasn’t organized enough to get them on our last record All Of Us Flames, and we got excited about synths—we just went in a different direction, which I really loved. But this time we got back to the string instruments, and we called Susan Voelz, the wonderful violist and arranger who I sort of knew from years ago.
You returned to Chicago and worked with Brian Deck, who produced your earliest rock records. What was it like revisiting that collaboration after so many years?
It was beautiful. He’s the best listener. He hears what you say and what you haven’t quite said. He hears what you play and what you haven’t played yet but want to. And to be back in Chicago and with him, there was some kind of return-to-childhood feeling about it, in a deep unconscious way that I can only barely apprehend but that I do think shaped this record into what it is, gave it some of its power.
You’ve talked about the physical illness that led to these songs pouring out of you. How did that experience shape the music and lyrics?
I lost all confidence and I was terribly lonely and I thought I was maybe going to die. I’d burned out and some days I wondered if I had anything good left in me at all, even apart from music. There were two months that I couldn’t really do anything or go anywhere, and I couldn’t care for my son much, and I felt so low. It’s like I sang in “Submission” – something broke, and I fell through the crack. And then down there in the place beneath the crack I found the songs. And then I got back up to ground level and it turned out I was almost finished writing a record, something that I thought could become beautiful.
The album title comes from a Sleater-Kinney lyric about self-dissolution. How does that idea—both the horror and the beauty of losing oneself—play out in the record?
It’s just in there. The narrator is a broken creature who can see God. Do I gotta explain everything?
“Grand Mal” and “Sudden Storm” were written in a hypomanic state after speaking with an epileptic friend. What was it about that conversation that resonated with you?
Look, it’s not that I don’t put a lot of craft into writing these songs. I do. But a lot of it is just like dreaming. I don’t understand why the inputs—what happened to me during the day, what I ate, conversations I had—result in the output of the particular dreams I dream. I just let it happen, especially in the case of those songs. I can tell you that that conversation wasn’t the only thing that brought those songs through. A lot of people I knew had been through some hard stuff. Some people I know died. Reality just felt un-metabolizable that day, just the whole surging world crashing over me like waves. I was prepared with a pen and paper and some built-up skills, and was able to turn the waves into lyrics.
“Jump Out” is a song about realizing you need to escape a dangerous situation. Is that a metaphor for something broader in your life or the world right now?
I do not know.
You describe “Submission” as the moment of accepting that the “good guys” are losing. Is that a feeling of despair, or is there some kind of catharsis in letting go?
Can it be both? I think it’s both. I don’t endorse it. I had a hard time with that song because I was like—this is not what I want to say, this is not what I believe anyone needs to hear. “We’re fucked… we’ll see no victory day.” But it was a feeling, a powerful feeling that I felt. It felt real. That doesn’t make it definitive or more true than a different feeling. “No feeling is final,” that’s what Rainer Maria Rilke says. “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
And if that’s true, then you can feel anything, and not be so afraid to feel it. You can sing a song of true despair, and then see what’s underneath that feeling. At the end of the song there are some more complicated lines: “The souls of the defeated slip out through the bars that cage us / And the ageless thing in me is never broken / The fugitive is free / The wound is open.”
I wanted to just let the wound stay open, not rationalize it away or take a false refuge in some false hope as a way of denying the bad feeling. Even though it pushes against this role I previously tried to hold, the role of consoler of the troops, the “we will fight and we will win” cheerleader girl. I’m not always feeling that way. So I chose honesty.
The album ends with a cover of Alex Walton’s “I Need the Angel.” What made that song the right way to close out Goodbye Small Head?
I can’t give everything away, dear. There’s a lot behind that choice conceptually. Musically, though, it just feels right. It’s a final breakdown, I finally revert to my old habit of getting drunk and screaming into the microphone, begging for my life.
You’ve made albums that felt communal, rallying cries for dark times. This one feels much more solitary. Was it difficult to shift into that space?
Yes.
You’ve said this record offers a “look over the edge” into something frightening but beautiful. What do you hope listeners take away from that view?
I hope I’ve made some audible contribution to transcribing the consciousness of the human race. That’s what Lawrence Ferlinghetti said, he said, “If you would be a great poet, strive to transcribe the consciousness of the race.” I want the record to feel like it feels to be alive in this society right now. And I hope there’s some solace in hearing something like that. Maybe it can help somebody confront who they are, who they want to be. Lift a few veils. It’s hard to say, and it’s sort of not even my business what anyone does with it or gets out of it. I just had to make this record, that’s all I know. It had to be like this. And I’m proud that it is.
Goodbye Small Head doesn’t offer easy answers or tidy resolutions. Instead, it invites listeners into a space where despair and transcendence coexist—where the wound stays open and the truth isn’t smoothed over. Furman has crafted something startlingly intimate, a document of survival through surrender. “I just had to make this record,” she says. “That’s all I know.” It’s enough.
Goodbye small head is out on May 16th via Bella Union.
