As a recovering Catholic, I know the pull of religion as a thing to study long after leaving the Church. My dad’s sisters, growing up in the 1960s and 70s, mostly became cloistered nuns, but for subversive reasons: coming from a blue-collar family in a small, rural city, it was the only way they could get a higher education. They’re each brilliant, professional, accomplished women, and not one of them is involved with the Church anymore. Religion played a big part in my upbringing, but a healthy skepticism was always part of the mix. This likely makes me the ideal audience for Boyfriend‘s new album In the Garden, out tomorrow (May 9).
In the Garden is a soundtrack to a stage production, a reimagining of the Adam and Eve story centred on Eve, played by Boyfriend herself. This was a uniquely challenging piece to write. Each listen of In the Garden, each interview and background piece I read about Boyfriend and her collaborators changed the way I perceived the record.
Suzannah Powell (aka Boyfriend) grew up in a conservative, Christian environment within the Church of Christ in Nashville, where the Bible was the literal word of God. In this interview with Alex Rawls in My Spilt Milk, she talks about the inspiration for the project:
There are so many beautiful, gentle, open, origin myths in the world. This one functions as the cornerstone of patriarchy. Sure there’s other ways to interpret it–notions of duality, a breaking off from one-ness–but the way it functions in religion and even in society is this constant reference point for shame and punishment for women.
In the Garden isn’t some South Park-style takedown. Boyfriend approaches the source material with academic curiosity, but never loses sight of its power as a living myth. Her approach isn’t cynical or flippant; it’s defiantly feminist, queer, and deeply invested in the possibilities of myth-making. It’s evident in the Backstory post how seriously she takes the project. “This is certainly not designed to outrage anyone. Outrage won’t allow any room for engagement”, she tells Rawls.
In the Garden tells the story mostly straight: Billy Porter narrates with sassy stage directions, and Big Freedia as God brings a bombastic rap persona to the Book of Genesis. Eve arrives before Adam and questions everything (“Is this a game / that I’m playing / Or am I being played?”). As for Adam, Jake Shears plays him as wide-eyed and guileless, entitled to everything and just happy to be here.
The Serpent (played by Peaches in an inspired bit of casting), doesn’t seduce so much as provoke. She eggs on Eve’s natural curiosity, resulting in a series of dynamic and catchy songs whose titles tell the story of the downfall of Eden: the poppy “Sex” and “Want” and climactic standouts “Curse” and “Fight”.
It ends with a defiant and furious Eve: on the wild Greek-chorus-accompanied electro closer “Own It”, Boyfriend pulls no punches with the lyrics: “When you force her beneath you / Then take her to trial / Use your violence to silence her / Rip out her teeth then tell her to smile“. Goosebumps.
A few tracks feel like they’re missing a verse or a bridge, but these are moments that would surely be filled in by the energy of a live production, which Boyfriend has suggest is part of the plan.
This is where I come back to my ex-nun aunts: smart, subversive women who found in the church not just constraint, but a loophole for autonomy and education. I have no doubt they’d find In the Garden dazzling, and likely scandalously, deliciously vulgar. But they’d recognize the project’s heart: a refusal to accept shame as the price of knowledge, and a critical but well-intentioned skepticism.
