Chris Zurich’s Latest Single “You’re My Crutch”

Pop music is all about establishing a mood, and if there’s one singer/songwriter that I’ve listened to in the last couple of months who knows how to do this better than most of his peers in the New York underground do, it’s Chris Zurich. Zurich’s new single, “You’re My Crutch,” is a song steeped in moodiness, starting with the instrumental melodic ribbonry used to tie its gorgeous lyrical substance together. At once, our singer can both throw himself at the mercy of the harmony and control its very direction, drawing together the feeling of internal conflict like few other players at his experience level can. He’s got immense natural talent, and it’s producing some really chill moments in this track. 

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There’s absolutely nothing rushed about the delivery of these lyrics, and I would even say that Zurich is making a point of pacing the verses out to follow the percussion rather than the other way around. His greatest attribute as a performer is his ability to imply emotions without spelling them out in black and white words, which is something that some of his contemporaries both in and outside of the New York City scene have been struggling with in the past year. He’s got a lot of confidence coming into every line he sings, and a big part of that has to do with his stylizing everything from the rhythm to the rhymes that adorn them around what he knows he can do better than the rest of his peer group. 

The string play is quite honestly the most powerful part of this single outside of Zurich’s own singing, and I think its presence changes how we’re interpreting the larger narrative at hand. I think that if this arrangement had more of a traditional, almost neo-symphonic feel, I think we might not have been able to appreciate just how much soul my boy is putting up from either side of the verse. His voice is only the tipping point to the passion in this piece; when isolated, every element of the master mix is contributing something bold and colorful to the big picture in “You’re My Crutch,” which isn’t something I’ve seen from any of the other indie singles making a splash with critics and fans this November. 

You can’t go wrong with the harmonies Chris Zurich designs in “You’re My Crutch,” and if there’s anything we can gather from the ambitiousness of the songwriting at hand in this single, it’s that we aren’t listening to a one-hit-wonder by any measurement. Zurich is an artist very much in the process of coming into his own, and if he’s able to continue with the delicate pop sensibilities he’s manipulated so marvelously in this performance, I believe he’s going to find himself the subject of increasing hype and interest from both the media and those who simply love good pop music. “You’re My Crutch” is a vulnerable taste of his talents, and a song I plan on spinning well into the New Year. 

Michael Rand