The circumstances of its making are half the story, and they are irresistible. Johnson was constructing his home studio but had not yet moved in, so he decamped to a basement room in an old church with no windows and no clock, and stayed there. You can hear the sensory deprivation. Time seems to have been mislaid somewhere between the pews and the boiler, and the song drifts through a sacred building whose tenant has stopped being sure of his welcome.

The drums are where he makes his boldest decisions. Johnson recorded them one strike at a time, using his hands and a drawer of atypical implements, and assembled the results like a man building a cathedral from salvage. The percussion does not so much keep time as haunt it. Tom Waits, one of the patron saints on Johnson's list of influences, spent a career persuading kitchen furniture to testify, and would recognise a kindred spirit at work here. This is a rhythm section made of knocks, thuds and rattles, the sound of somebody pacing an empty building at three in the morning.

Above and around it, the harmonies climb. Johnson stacks his own voice into a soaring southern-gospel choir, and the effect is oddly moving, because every member of that congregation is the same lonely man. Fleet Foxes built whole cathedrals of harmony from the same principle, but their choirs were sunlit. His is lit by a single bulb swinging in a draught. Beneath it all, swirling echo effects move like weather behind stained glass, giving the track its slightly seasick, otherworldly depth. Nothing about the production is tidy, and that is entirely to its credit.

Johnson describes the song as the sound of a soul driving through an empty, smoldering desert in a car making troubling noises, with the engine perilously close to overheating. As a piece of self-mythology it is superb, and as a description of the record it is accurate. The song has a pulse of mechanical unease, a sense of something under the bonnet about to give way, while the voice keeps its eyes on a horizon that may or may not exist. It is a plea from an outcast whose family and friends have stopped understanding him, and who is beginning to distrust his own motives. Leonard Cohen made a career from that particular ache, and Nina Simone brought to it a gravity that nobody has matched since. Johnson does not attempt to match either. He is smart enough to borrow their seriousness and leave their voices where they are, and there is a Beckian curiosity in the way he lets strange sounds in and trusts them to stay.

Best of all, the record refuses the easy exit. Gospel usually delivers salvation by the final chorus. Johnson leaves the door ajar and the corridor dark. The heart is still broken, the redemption unconfirmed, and the dawn has not yet turned up. That restraint gives the song its authority. Anyone can sing about being saved, but very few will sit in the basement and sing about waiting.

It is a wonderfully odd, handmade and unhurried piece of music, and its maker has clearly earned his solitude. With a full album promised for early 2027, this single is a dark, beautiful calling card. Lord, look after him indeed, and keep the church basement unlocked.