Songfacts®:

• Christopher Owens' third album, Chrissybaby Forever, landed in May 2015 as the final installment in a three-album contract. The record label promptly dropped him, leaving Owens in a state of professional and personal freefall.
  
  In the years leading up to his fourth album, Owens endured a motorbike crash, homelessness, the death of his former Girls bandmate Chet "JR" White, and the end of an engagement. But from the ashes of heartbreak and upheaval came I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair, an album that turns pain into poetry and desolation into something close to hope.
  
  The song is Owens' first attempt at envisioning a positive romantic future after his previous heartbreak and personal struggles.
• In writing "Beautiful Horses," Owens was wondering what he needs from somebody to have a good relationship. He asserts his readiness for a new romance while also setting boundaries and expectations.
  
  "In that song I was imagining how I would possibly imagine being in another relationship," Owens told Uncut magazine. "How things would have to be, what I would require from someone else. I guess in my previous relationship I'd felt I was looked at like somebody who would be great if only they would change this or that. Like a project. Once I started to write Beautiful Horses it was like a declaration of 'I need somebody to just accept me as-is. I think once somebody does that for somebody does that for you. It's such an act of grace that you just on your own want to be your best person."
• "Beautiful Horses" is one of the brighter spots on an album that didn't initially seem destined for light. Owens admits the songs he first wrote - tracks like "No Good" and "White Flag" - were, in his words, "really depressing." His listening habits at the time leaned heavily on rap, which may have influenced the initial darker tone. But then he wrote "Two Words," a song that marked a shift in his outlook, and suddenly, hope began to seep in. From that point, the record grew more positive.
• The album title came from a memory hiccup - Owens believed the phrase came from It's a Wonderful Life (1946) but it actually hails from the 1933 film Bombshell. No matter - it's the sentiment that counts. The imagery of running barefoot through someone's hair conjures intimacy, liberation, and a yearning for connection, themes that resonate deeply throughout the record.