Description
Anohni And The Johnsons – My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross – Vinyl Record
Anohni and the Johnsons – My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross is the fifth studio album from Anohni (formerly known as Antony Hegarty) and her band The Johnsons, released on July 7, 2023 via Rough Trade. It marked the first Anohni and the Johnsons album since Swanlights (2010), and it finds Anohni returning to a more organic, band-oriented sound after the electronic textures of her 2016 solo project Hopelessness.
Where Hopelessness was politically charged and electronically bracing, My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross is soulful, intimate, and elegiac. Anohni has cited Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On (1971) as a major inspiration, and you can hear that influence in the record’s warm, understated arrangements—built around guitar, bass, and subtle instrumentation—that leave room for her voice and lyrics to take center stage. The result is a deeply emotional album that blends personal grief, social commentary, and ecological concern.
The songs are relatively stripped down compared to earlier Johnsons records, which often featured lush chamber-pop arrangements. Here, the production is spare and direct, guided by British producer Jimmy Hogarth, giving the record a raw immediacy. Tracks like “It Must Change” and “Can’t” deliver searing social critiques, while “Scapegoat” and “Sliver of Ice” (inspired by a conversation with Lou Reed shortly before his death) move into more meditative, poetic territory. The title track, My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross, serves as both a lament and a metaphor for sacrifice, love, and burden.
The album is concerned with interconnectedness—between people, between humans and the planet, and between past and future generations. The cover image of activist Marsha P. Johnson, a foundational figure in LGBTQ+ history, further underscores the album’s connection to themes of identity, resilience, and liberation.
Critics widely praised the album upon release, calling it one of Anohni’s most powerful works. Many noted the tension between its gentle musical palette and the urgency of its messages, with her voice—rich, emotive, and unflinching—serving as the anchor. The record was recognized not just as a return for Anohni and the Johnsons but as one of the standout albums of 2023, cementing her place as one of the most important and uncompromising voices in contemporary music.
My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross is a record of quiet but profound intensity: part soul album, part protest, part prayer. It bridges the political and the personal in a way that feels timeless, echoing both Anohni’s past work and the socially conscious music of greats like Marvin Gaye and Nina Simone.
Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic
Track Listing
It Must Change
Go Ahead
Sliver Of Ice
Can’t
Scapegoat
It’s My Fault
Rest
There Wasn’t Enough
Why Am I Alive Now?
You Be Free
