Emily Elbert was camping alone in Angeles National Forest when the raw energy that drives “God Is Change” began percolating. “I was in a process of grief and transformation in my life—and working to surrender to that unfolding process,” she says. “When I got home, walking the trails of the mountain near my house, I finished the second verse: ‘Feed my form into the flame/Knowing I’ll be born again.’ Little did I know how literal those flames would be. That same forest, my home and my entire town of Altadena would burn to the ground months later.”
Born in Dallas, Elbert is an accomplished road warrior and touring guitarist who’s played with Jenny Lewis, Amos Lee, Leon Bridges and others. She’s also established herself over the past two decades as a potent, issue-oriented singer/songwriter, as the woozy, intoxicating psychedelic blues of her latest single so eloquently demonstrates. Elbert’s genre-fluid discography dates to 2006’s Bright Side, an album she recorded in high school. Her most recent LP, Woven Together, was released in 2022.
“God Is Change” is out today via Metropolitan Groove Merchants. “The spirit of the song was inspired by a fellow former Altadena resident, the prophetic black science-fiction author Octavia Butler,” says Elbert. “She said, ‘All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change.’ Since the fires, this concept has carried me as I witness myself, my community and the world in the throes of vast changes and a need for liberatory, connective transformation.”
We’re proud to premiere Emily Elbert’s “God Is Change.”
—Hobart Rowland
