The Milky Way holds somewhere between 100 billion and 400 billion stars, so a billion suns amounts to a thin slice of one galaxy. Scott Fisher borrows that scale for a song about something much smaller: a guy who drifts effortlessly into the cool crowd and then fades out of the narrator’s life.
Fisher’s previous album, Kingdom of Ego, took aim at the greed and self-obsession that social media feeds, and “A Billion Suns” carries that concern forward with a lighter touch. “These imaginary things we do / With imaginary friends,” he sings, then advises looking at what’s inside yourself before you reach the end. The chorus answers with cosmic pressure: whatever is coming arrives fast, everyone keeps spinning, nobody knows where they’ll land, and nothing here lasts.
The arrangement gives the word weight a physical meaning. Fisher recorded at East West Studios with bassist Tim Lefebvre, whose credits include David Bowie and Sting, and drummer Joey Waronker, who has played with Beck and Thom Yorke. Lefebvre’s bass lines are gritty and melodic at once, anchoring piano and strings that drift overhead while jazz-leaning rock guitar threads through the middle.
Fisher lets the scale do the arguing and keeps the delivery relaxed and a little seductive, so a song about impermanence lands as an invitation to enjoy the moment. The narrator spends the first verse trying to keep things tight and the second trying to keep them light, a one-letter change that sums up the song’s advice. Measured against a billion suns, the cool kids barely register, and Fisher makes that sound like good news.
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