The 1975 may have pushed back the release of their upcoming album, Notes on a Conditional Form, to May 22, but they gave fans plenty to chew on in the meantime on Friday morning (April 3) when they dropped the full studio version of the meditative acoustic ballad “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America.”
The acoustic track features backing vocals and a verse from Phoebe Bridgers, who was slated to open for the group on a tour that has postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Over gentry strummed guitar and muted horns, singer Matty Healy exhales, “I’m in love with Jesus Christ/ He’s so nice/ I’m in love I’ll say it twice/ I’m in love (love)/ I’m in love but I’m feeling low/ For I am just a footprint in the snow.”
Healy then sings about hiding his love for a “boy I know,” before moving on to the irony of searching for planes in the ocean and wishing that he could be the leaves of a tree.
Next, Bridgers takes the third verse solo. “I’m in love with the girl next door/ Her name’s Claire/ Nice when she comes ’round to call/ Then masturbate the second she’s not there,” she sings in a high, sweet voice over the guitar and some electronic squiggles.
The pair twist their voices together for the remainder of the song, which will appear on their upcoming fourth album and which Healy debuted live in February at a brushfire relief show in Sydney, Australia. The 22-track release is the follow-up to 2018’s A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships.
Listen to “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America” below.
