Julien Baker Delivers Emphatic Performance of ‘Faith Healer’ on ‘Colbert’

Julien Baker performed the lead single from her new album, “Faith Healer,” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert Thursday, January 7th.

Filmed at the Nashville venue Exit/In, Baker and her backing band moved through the expansive track and built steadily toward its final booming chorus. “Oh, faith healer, come put your hands all over me,” Baker sings, pushing her voice to its stunning upper limits, “A snake oil dealer/I’ll believe you if you make me feel something.”

“Faith Healer” will appear on Baker’s upcoming third album, Little Oblivions, out February 26th. The album follows her 2017 breakout, Turn Out the Lights, and marks her first solo effort largely made with the help of a backing band (although there are still a few sparse solo cuts on it as well).

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Baker spoke about how the album found her grappling with her continued struggles with substance abuse, while also radically changing the way she examined and viewed herself.

“It’s so hard to be wrong about something you were so sure was right,” she said. “I feel like Turn Out The Lights, the whole premise of so many of the songs were the two parts of the self facing each other, the antagonistic part and the good, triumphant, idealistic part. It’s been a process of understanding those are the same person, and instead of overcoming and defeating and subduing this negative part, trying to mercifully assimilate that into your understanding of yourself.”