Filled with wonder once again

The music and vision of Bill Fay

I did not think to include Bill Fay on my list of favorite music from last year, which was an enormous oversight on my part because it is impossible for me to think of an artist who had a more profound impact on me throughout 2024. Last February, Dead Oceans released Fay’s Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow, 43 years after it was originally recorded in 1981. I discovered it by chance and proceeded to spend the next month immersed in Fay’s discography, mostly listening to it the same way I listened to music in high school, before the internet wholly wrecked my attention span — lying on my bed motionless, headphones on, staring at the ceiling until each album finished. It was transcendent; I was transported.

At 81, Fay has been making music for decades, but it’s only in the last one or two that he’s gained some semblance of mainstream success. He released two albums in the early 70s, but they sold so poorly that he was dropped by his record label shortly after the second and largely disappe…