The Henry Jamison song Real Peach popped onto my radar a month ago, and if the number of plays worn into my Spotify is any indication, I really like it.

I would no more call a romantic partner “baby” than I would chew off my right arm, so it’s hard to reconcile its centrality to the song with how much I like it.

But how often do you come across a song with this good a melody that also has turns of phrase like “lioness-esque woman” and “I was writing something elegiac, that I never learned to sing”. (And, for that matter, if I’m going to go to war on baby in popular music, my headphones will be mostly silent).

So I grit my ears, and press play again. Listen here.

Well nighttime passes, but the dark remains
and I was feelin’ like a little child, but I am loathe to place blame
on that lioness-esque woman, who will go here unnamed
she was looking in me for a lion, when she found it so tame

On that erstwhile May morning, I took the 6 downtown to Spring
and I was writing something elegiac, that I never learned to sing
but I think that it was this song, just four years premature
and I remember crossing out the line — “all is fair in love and war”

Well if all is fair in love and war
then I don’t know what we’re fighting for

Cuz my baby she’s a real peach
even when the night come crashin’ down
real peach
and the nighttime rolls away, alright
and we’re comin’ back to the demon-killing work of love
(my god)

Well nighttime passes and the dark retreats
I hand it over to my upper angel who visits me in sleep
we’re in the field beyond the right and wrong and the fallacy of form
you can call it what you wanna call it, I just say “all is fair in love and war”

Well if all is fair in love and war
then I don’t know what we are fighting for
So if we don’t care to fight no more
let’s go upstairs and let’s shut the door

Cuz my baby she’s a real peach
even when the night come crashin’ down
real peach
and the nighttime rolls away, alright
and we’re comin’ back to the demon-killing work of love
(my god) illuminate