B-Side Guys

Between Appalachian home recordings and Sunset Sound’s hallowed halls, Illiterate Light has crafted an opening statement that turns desperation into destination. “Payphone” captures a moment of crisis in amber, preserving both the panic and the peculiar peace that comes from reaching out across the void.

The track’s protagonist emerges in fragments: one eye open, foot on the pedal, selling encyclopedias door-to-door like some lost Arthur Miller character displaced into the digital age. But it’s the figure of Big Red—”fake tits and diet coke/full of undefeated hope”—who anchors both the narrator and the song itself, her unconditional support cutting through static and doubt alike.

Co-produced by Jeff Gorman and Jake Cochran with Joe Chiccarelli, the song balances small-town intimacy with big-room ambition. That sweeping synth line serves as both safety net and horizon line, while the “jangly and groovy” instrumentation mirrors the perpetual motion of a soul too restless to rust completely.

The payphone itself becomes both metaphor and character—a last-resort lifeline that can receive but not return calls, forcing conversation into a one-way street. When the narrator confesses “I wanna throw it all away it’s too much/I can’t live with my mistakes I’ve tried,” the antiquated technology somehow makes the admission more immediate, more raw.

Gorman and Cochran’s experience with their “massive” live shows bleeds into the arrangement. You can hear the muscle memory of Gorman’s one-footed bass pedal work and Cochran’s standing drum kit dance in how the track builds and releases tension, creating stadium-sized feelings in dive bar dimensions.

Recording vocals in the same room that hosted Neil Young and Paul McCartney might intimidate some artists into reverence, but Illiterate Light uses that legacy as permission to push forward. Under the “big September sky” of the lyrics, every breakdown feels like potential breakthrough, every moment of being “lost and broken, broken, broken” another chance at reconstruction.

The repeated mantra “let it ride” gains power through context—it’s not blind optimism but hard-won survival strategy, backed by Big Red’s maternal certainty that “everything’s alright.” In the accompanying video, Chez Goodspeed brings this character to life from her laundromat command center, turning routine into ritual.

What emerges is a portrait of rock bottom as launching pad, with Big Red as mission control. When the “call keeps dropping,” she remains the fixed point, the one steady signal in static. Her “seeming lack of depth” proves precisely what makes her wisdom accessible when complexity becomes too much to bear.

Opening their upcoming album Arches, “Payphone” sets up Illiterate Light’s larger examination of American collapse and renewal. Like the encyclopedia salesmen in their video searching for working payphones, they’re mapping what remains of our connections, testing each line for signs of life.