‘Jason,’ a heartbreaking track from Perfume Genius’ fifth album Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, doesn’t seem like an obvious choice for a live performance on one of the Jimmys. Indeed, when introducing the performance, Kimmel says the album’s title as if he’s never before said those words in that order: “Set, My, Heart, On Fire, Immediately.”
But it’s what Mike Hadreas performed. The song is about an experience 16 years past but resonates with different 23-year-olds perpetually, both those in the part of the crying explorer and the one being explored. With clothes and face smeared with Joshua Tree’s dirt, Hadreas sits and croons “He was afraid / Tears streaming down his face.”
These experiences -- performing in a pandemic, closeted sex -- rest on complicated, unwanted context. Both are worth doing but also kind of suck. Both, in different proportions, communicate fear and intimacy. But whereas Jason and Mike may have found some catharsis in secret then been left feeling hollow, the song, performed in the desert, brimming with harpsichord and homoeroticism on a show with a premise from a bygone era, feels very much on Hadreas’ terms. When he winks at the camera around the 1:44 mark, it's like he’s succeeded in spite of it all. He’s lived to tell the tale.
And here is my original review of Perfume Genius’ album.