Ezra Furman has shared a new song – her first for the year – titled ‘Point Me Toward the Real’. The track was produced by John Congleton, and features horn arrangements by Nate Walcott of Bright Eyes along with backing vocals from Shannon Lay and Debbie Neigher.

It’s a slow-burning ballad that tells a story about the narrator’s first night after being released from a psychiatric facility. “Point me toward the real motherfuckers, point me toward the real / I’ve been lied to and abuse, time to try to heal,” Furman sings above moody synths.

Listen to ‘Point Me Toward the Real’ below:

“This is a neo-soul song about getting released from a psychiatric hospital, which has never happened to me,” Furman said in a statement. “But really it’s a song about what you do right after abuse, imprisonment, a brush with death. Who do you call when it’s supposedly over? Where do you go? How do you know what you want?

“We’ve all recently been going through something terrifying. We’ve all made friends with death in the last two years. When I look to the future, I want to know who has my back? Whose back do I have? And what is real, what and who can I rely on? Point me toward the real; there’s no other direction I want to go.”

Last year, Furman released an EP of songs written for Netflix’s Sex Education. She also featured on Du Blonde‘s album ‘Homecoming’, contributing vocals on the collaboration ‘I’m Glad We Broke Up’.

Furman’s last studio album was 2019’s ‘Twelve Nudes’. In a four-star review, NME‘s Jordan Bassett praised the record as a “quick’n’dirty album of fizzing pop-punk songs recorded at breakneck speed”.