Tennessee-born singer and guitarist Julien Baker, who identifies as gay and Christian, said many of her songs on her new album were inspired by hymns that she heard growing up. “Many of my songs just come together in quatrains because that’s how a hymn goes,” the singer explained in an interview with The New York Times on Sunday ahead of her second album, Turn Out the Lights, which is being released Oct. 27. “Another thing that I love about hymns is that despite being antiquated modes of worship — maybe — they contain these really emotive phrases. All of my favorite hymns are admissions
of faults, and finding redemption even in those.” Baker, 22, grew up in a religious household, “soaking up evangelical doctrine” and participating in church music, the NYTimes described. “At 17, she came out as gay to her parents, expecting the worst. But instead, her father combed the Bible for passages about love and acceptance,” the article pointed out. In a 2016 interview with noisey, she recalled saying “I think I’m going to hell” when she came out to her parents. But her father told her she’s not going to hell and her mother told her God loves her. READ MORE
