Angelic Existentialism

"Intern" is the lead single and first track from American singer-songwriter Angel Olsen's upcoming fourth album My Woman (2016). The slow, brooding, and atmostpheric song showcases some of the qualities that made her third album -  (2014) - a hit with critics: an arresting, versatile and angelic voice and honest, insightful and emotionally intelligent (and often existential) lyrics, and a minimalist production that allow her vocals to take center stage without overpowering the record. Pitchfork has already listed "Intern" as a Best New Track for 2016. 

In a low voice, Olsen ponders on how our work and career choices form an indelible part of our identity, and our lives:

Everyone I know has got their own idealI just wanna be alive make something realDoesn't matter who you are or what you doSomething in the work will make a fool of you

 Lyrics: Musixmatch.com

Something in the work will make a fool of you: there's something dehumanizing about the whole endeavor ('I don't care what the papers say/ It's just another intern with a resume'), but one has to find a way to pay the bills nonetheless, and hope for whatever sliver of meaning that can also be garnered in the process. There's the escapist impulse - I'm gonna fall in love with you some day/ I'm gonna fall in love and run away - but the song does little to entertain the fantasy of running away from it all. The song ends with an anti-climactic return to the drudgery of work, and the belief that love will help you transcend its constraints:

'Pick up the phone but I swear it's the last time

Falling in love and I swear it's the last time.'