Ever had whiplash in the course of a song before? Well, you’re about to - courtesy of the song you have to hear today, Julia Michaels’ territorial ‘back off bitches, he’s mine’ anthem.
Starting out as a quaint acoustic number with sparse backing and yearning lyrics, you’d be forgiven for thinking we were in for three and a half minutes of gentle balladeering - but you’ve been misled. The bridge sees the production start to amp up somewhere in the distance, but it is after a brief pause that the song turns entirely on its head and a new beast is born.
‘I wanna live in a world where are all your exes are DEAD’ Julia spits - a dark sentiment over a deep thrashing of electric guitar, no more pretty acoustics in sight. Consider those metaphorically smashed. Like a pretty pussycat who was all sweetness and light to begin with, Julia is soon peeing to mark her territory and clearly not afraid to use her claws.
We all understand the heart dropping feeling when an ex gets brought into conversation, and Julia is not afraid to make her feelings on it known (‘I’m confident I’ve got them accurately demonised’) in a song that builds and builds, drums upon production upon guitar until it is entirely unrecognisable from how it began.
‘You tell me not to worry, I’m the only thing you see - well yeah I fucking better be!’ she sings as the song launches into its biggest and loudest chorus yet (feat some beautiful harmony work). This is a song with very obvious purpose, big backbone energy and absolutely zero shyness. And if you predicted where it would end up from where it began… then can I have the lottery numbers?
As catchy as it is risk tasking, this will be in your head for days… but your ex lovers better not be.
For fans of: Pale Waves, shapeshifting tunes with a real air of unpredictability, letting your man know he better not even THINK about them, honey!