“Society has a terrible habit of only recognizing achievement while glossing over the greatness in the shadows,” Trevor Powers shared
It’s peak resolution season and Youth Lagoon left the notion of ultimate failure in 2023. On “Football,” the latest single from Trevor Powers’ solo project, the musician rejects an all-or-nothing approach to success and insists that any effort must count for something.
“‘Football’ is really a celebration of failure,” Powers shared in a statement. “Society has a terrible habit of only recognizing achievement while glossing over the greatness in the shadows. We’re so distracted trying to earn love, worth and value that we forget it’s something we inherently already have. I wanted to play with this idea through the lens of sports ‘cuz, in a lot of ways, sports are the truest religion.”
Powers produced “Football” alongside Rodaidh McDonald. In the accompanying Caleb Halter-directed video, snapshots of various sports performances put an image to the musician’s despondent inner monologue. “And you told me I was stayin’ strong, when all I’ve done is play along/And they put it on, they put it on me/Don’t put it on me,” he sings, adding: “Maybe you’re not the person who caught the football.”
“When I was young, it was the only way I knew how to connect with my dad. We didn’t have a lot in common, but we could both throw the ball. There were rules and rituals we could see eye-to-eye on,” Powers continued in his statement. “We didn’t have to argue over who was right or wrong. The difference in my family was, it didn’t matter how good I was. The act of just throwing a ball was communion. It didn’t matter if I caught it. I love my Dad for that.”
“Football” marks the first release from Youth Lagoon since last year’s Heaven Is a Junkyard, his first full-length in seven years. “I’m so confident in it. There’s not a single thing on the album that I would’ve done differently,” Powers told Rolling Stone last year. “I’ve given it everything that I have, in a way where nothing can steal any of that from me. No matter what people think of it, I know what it means to me. And that’s really all that matters.”