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[carlyfrombleachers]

The EMOTION Deluxe tracks, as promised

I did promise it’d be out.

The year ended. The year ended and I couldn’t pump out any extra content as I also had promised, and I apologize for it. Things have been quite busy and I’m working on many other projects. How were your holidays? I don’t know. I can’t hear you. Happy New Year!

Well, let’s begin already.

Black Heart

“I don’t care ‘bout your good intentions / I care more ‘bout your bad dreams”

Black Heart is cryptic and mystifying, and I love it. The track is about wanting a lover to come to you, instead of you coming to them.

“In your black heart is where you’ll find me / Cutting through the cracks of the concrete”

The color black represents a lot of things: loneliness, darkness, stealthiness, etcetera. Carly wishes to take the darkness out of her lover’s heart for herself, but her lover won’t allow it because their heart is made of stone (or in this case, concrete)

“You think love is a destination / Like a show on your TV / You’re a cry to your generation / But don’t you cry to me”

I like this line. I like it when people talk about TVs.

“Everything you ever wanted / Now it’s happening, under the blossom tree”

She’s waiting under the blossom tree, and she won’t leave. She’ll wait for someone to come to her, because she’s what they want.

Black Heart is quite short. There isn’t a whole lot to talk about because of how short it is.

I Didn’t Just Come Here to Dance

“I didn’t just come here to dance / If you know what I mean / Do you know what I mean?”

This song is about sex. I know what it means. It means sex.

“Hey, Joe’s calling me over / Tino is calling me over”

This is a reference to the co-writers of the track, named Joe and Tino.

This isn’t lyrically deep. It’s a track I enjoy, but there’s not much to analyze here.

Favourite Colour

I… don’t like this track. Let me just get this out of the way. It’s just personal preference.

“Slow down now / Breathing heavy when it’s just a kiss / This is getting kinda out of my hands”

Even though it’s just a kiss (heh), things are going too fast for Carly to keep up with them.

“Please don’t go, look real close / Eyes that show kaleidoscopes”

I think we all know what kaleidoscopes are, but if you don’t, it’s a telescope-looking thing (without the tripod) that displays holographic shiny images. Kinda like this:

“When I’m close to you / We blend into my favorite color / I’m bright baby blue / Falling into you / Falling for each other”

Carly uses the blending of colors to represent possibly sex, and possibly the fact that they are getting closer.

“Should I stay? / Making love until the morning light / Making out like it’s the end of the world / And I really wanna get it right”

This is, again, probably about sex, but the lyrics show a hidden side of the song: the feeling of being not good enough. “Please don’t go” and “And I really wanna get it right” are meant to represent that something is not 100% okay, and that she feels as if she’s not being enough.

“Paint me up, me up, me up / You’re my favorite color”

Carly goes from saying “We blend into my favorite color” to “You’re my favorite color”, representing the fact that both of them are now very close. “Paint me up” is pretty much a reference to… sex. But the use of painting is also a callback to EMOTION (the track), where Carly sings “Paint a picture for me, boy / Where the sky’s forever blue”. Note that the color blue is also used in EMOTION.

Never Get to Hold You

This track was only given to us last year, with the 5-year anniversary of EMOTION. This was previously a Japan-exclusive track, meaning the only way for us to hear it was through piracy. But now we don’t need to resort to that!

This reminds me lyrically of Always On My Mind, a leaked Dedicated track. You can download it here if you haven’t listened to it yet.

I really enjoy Never Get to Hold You. Like, really really enjoy it.

“Oh baby, don’t you go / You know I didn’t mean it, darling”

This line is repeated a lot throughout the first verse. Carly presumably got into an argument with her partner and sorely regrets it shortly after it happened, and then tells her partner over and over not to leave her.

“All I want is to hold you / Make you rock away this feeling for me”

She depends on her lover a lot, but they refuse to stay and love her.

“I never get to hold you as long as I want to / Remember I told you you’re all that I need”

With how much she depends on her lover, and how they don’t want to be around her anymore, she thinks about how they never stay too close. It’s possible that this happens a lot in their relationship, which is pretty much abusive, with Carly regretting everything she does because her partner always ends up leaving, only to come back and do everything over and over again.

“But I don’t think that anybody understands you the way I do, the way I do / I know you’ll let it go to your head if I say I’ll stay”

This could be taken in many directions, but the way I see it, Carly refuses to believe the abusive nature of this relationship and continuously convinces herself that her lover is someone only she can understand, and that she needs to “fix” him.

This is very… this is really good. I love this one.

Love Again

This one was also a Japan-exclusive, released worldwide last year. This is easily my favorite out of all the bonus tracks, and I love the production here. It sounds a lot like videogame final credits, and since this is the last track of the EMOTION era, it’s very enjoyable.

“Stars, won’t you shine on me? / Won’t you dance with me? / Me and my baby / Life, it’s enough to cry / It’s a lot to give and it’s driving me crazy”

Love Again is about trying to get over a relationship that didn’t end well, potentially the one seen in the previous track. Carly wishes over and over that things go back to how they were before it all ended, shocked at the natural occurrences around her. The stars have lost their charm, their shine, and Carly is upset.

“I never meant to fight with you / I wanted us to stay together / And even though my love is true / I know that we can’t be together”

Carly sorely regrets this fight, which must’ve marked the end of the relationship. She knows it’s wrong to pursue a relationship still, but wishes to still be with her lover.

“Moon, where’s the man in you? / Show the way to us / The sky is turning black now / Moon, what you trying to do? / It’s too late for us and there’s no turning back now”

Much like the stars have lost their shine, the moon refuses to show its face, and the sky turns black to show things won’t turn out how she wishes they would. It’s too late for them.

“Somewhere out there, someone is breathing / Just for you, their heart keeps on beating”

The main message of Love Again is that there will be others for you. It’s not worth it to obsess over a failed relationship, because others will come.

Well, that’s it. I’m done with EMOTION! Now onto Dedicated, I guess.

Bye! Have a great 2021.

[carlyfrombleachers]

Liveblogging of TS6 (reputation)

Okay. Let me preface this by saying I don’t like Taylor Swift. I think she’s a boring artist, who brings close to nothing to the table. The reason I’m even listening to Reputation is because I keep getting recommended an interview of Jack Antonoff where he talks about New Year’s Day (which is a song on Reputation) and I really want to watch that but I also want to know what the fuck he’s talking about. So here we are. Don’t expect more stuff like this from me. I expect this to be just a one-off thing. Swifties, don’t fucking come after me or I will cry. The only other TS album I listened to was Lover, and I thought it was trash. Absolute garbage. And apparently this one is worse than Lover. I don’t know if I’ll regret this.

Let’s begin, I guess.

...Ready For It?

I keep thinking of that one voice clip from the Hannah Montana intro (?) where you faintly hear a girl say “are you ready for it?” and that’s my first impression just by looking at the title.

I’m hitting ‘play’ right now.

Oh nevermind, I forgot to pay Deezer this month. YouTube it is.

Hey look, Ajay is in my recommended. Queen of reactions.

Help what is this

rockstar taylor??

what the fuck is up with the beat

chorus felt weak. this is my first opinion im not done with the track

i looked at the music video for 3 seconds and i saw a horse bye

i was distracted by the music video help i dont like this

since i looked at the music video for just a lil while i should say it looks weird. it is weird in a bad way it looks like some knockoff cyberpunk thing.

why didnt she just name this “Are You Ready For It?”

I’m... not particularly blown away by this track. It’s fine. I wouldn’t bop to it but I wouldn’t object to it playing somewhere. It’s like... it’s decent.

End Game (ft. Ed Sheeran, Future)

I don’t know who Future is.

she said reputation haha thats the name of the album

ok future is a rapper i dont listen to rap thats why i dont know him

after listening to lover i cant believe this is the same woman this is so weird

not looking forward to the ed sheeran part

“i wanna be your end game” this wasnt really what i was expecting

fuck off ed sheeran (i just reached his part)

according to some tabloid lady gaga mistook ed sheeran for a waiter? i would do the same thing if i saw this redhead fuckface on the street as well lol

“big reputation, big reputation, you and me got a big reputation” so deep!!!

I guess I should take this time to-- is she rapping?

Sorry, I got distracted. I don’t think every song needs to be this huge deep piece that must be deeply analyzed for centuries, but I do expect some interesting message or context for a track at least. If it sounds good, I’d also give it a pass. 

This one? This was boring. I would not verbally object to this playing close to me, I would just have a grossed out look on my face during the chorus.

I Did Something Bad

I keep reading the title in Akasaka Sad’s tune. You know the part where Rina says “A-ka-sa-ka sad, I’m a sucker”? I keep thinking “I did-I did something bad”. I don’t expect it to be like that.

“i never trust a narcissist but they love me” taylor talks about her fanbase

sorry to drag swifties publicly but i will forever take an opportunity to drag a swiftie

predictable antithesis use there with “i did something bad so why does it feel so good” but okay

why was taylor branded a snake again? she pretended it was “””gone””” with lover but like. it’s weird. its not like she punched kanye on stage in 2008 or something. i dont care enough to search for evidence that taylor is a snake so lol go off i guess

dont enjoy the post-chorus part where she’s like drddddddd dddddddd it feels so distracting the gunshots were more than enough

Yeah, this one was fine. My favorite up to this point, I think.

Don’t Blame Me

lol she said “dont blame me” then it buffered bye

i was showering for the past 25 minutes hello i was listening to track 10 and melodrama

i am enjoying this one kinda

“dont blame me love made me crazy” haha wait until you find out what your next era is

“i once was poison ivy now im your daisy” this is a pretty good line honestly

obligatory katy flop moment: haha taylor could hit the high notes in daisy

this sounds like a country song especially in the chorus i dont know what to really make of it

“loooord save me” this is why your female fans are called horse girls

This was... pretty good. The chorus weirds me out still, but it had its good moments. It was nice.

Delicate

stop saying reputation in the reputation album

this autotune voice bits of hers are so distracting

i say as i listen to how i’m feeling now by charli xcx

yes i did just roast myself. gotta leave the swifties with nothing

god the music video for this track has 400m views this woman is making my faves look like indie stars LOL

I keep getting distracted because this song is boring. It’s... okay. I guess. The music video was pretty cute. Nothing caught my attention in the track, but it sounds like gym music. It would play on a gym owned by a 30-something white woman during the yoga classes and you know it.

Look What You Made Me Do

We’ve all heard this song. I’m gonna listen to it and then be done with it.

I guess I’ll just watch the music video.

ONE BILLION VIEWS????????????

Okay. I watched the music video.

Really? All the fem guys dancing with her?

I’m not going to sit here and be like “fem guys are BAD and should all die and never be represented” because… lol. But it is kind of annoying how it was literally just fem guys dancing with her and doing all those faces because you KNOW she was looking for the impressionable gays to go “omg taylor progressive!!!!” and go talk about it on social media.

But am I saying that because I don’t like Taylor? Yes. But that doesn’t make my point less valid.

The music video was pretty good, the production on this track is really good (thank you Jack Antonoff xx) and the track itself is good. Not outstanding or perfect or a serve, it’s good.

Also the ending with all her previous eras? That was cool. The uncool part is most of the “look how rich I am” parts… because we all know you’re rich, Taylor. Nice SFX.

So It Goes…

i got an ad whyyyyyyy

fuck this shit i cant keep up with what shes saying im pulling genius out for this one

this is not lyrically deep i can tell already from genius

im not a fan of love songs i already have CRJ to cover that base and Lorde covers breakup songs I guess and this song is just. boring. lol

Nothing really shocking or noteworthy here, it’s just.. okay.

Gorgeous

I got another ad FUCK

i got a boss baby ad help

god boss baby really was something huh i completely forgot about that

why am i talking about boss baby

okay. reputation

why did a baby say gorgeous

HELP i am so disappointed this is the one track with the lyric video and god this is disappointing

i saw this and i was like “oh shit shes gonna talk about how its gonna be gorgeous when u die” or smth and

lol. LOL. the depth is nonexistent and the bar is in hell

who wrote this? you lied

This song is so boring, LOL. I expected so much from it and was instantly disappointed when the pre-chorus hit. You had everything on your plate and you ate the plate itself. Girl. What the hell. Why. You could’ve given us an anthem about hating your man, and you took the easy route.

Getaway Car

im intrigued

okay im listening and this sounds very jack antonoff? the shotgun thing made me immediately go o_o

it felt a bit weak at the end but at the start i was enjoying it quite a lot… i think this is my fave

I enjoyed this one quite a lot :) It was pretty good but not an amazing masterpiece. It was better than LWTMMD and that’s all I have to say.

King Of My Heart

sounds boring haha

taylor keeps putting these trap beats in things sister youre not lorde LOL

yeah this is kinda boring

WAIT A MINUTE NEW YEARS DAY IS THE LAST TRACK???? IM GONNA HAVE TO STICK UNTIL THE END oh my god please no

i dont. i .. i knew this would be happening but i didnt expect it to be the last one

i guess the timing is accurate ha ha ha ha

i just heard ariana grande

I keep hearing Ariana Grande on this track. Is that good? I don’t know.

Dancing With Our Hands Tied

why are there so many songs in this fucking album

the beat is.. okay. it is catchy

oh i like this i think. its pretty nice

the chorus is nice. yes. i do kind of enjoy this

Yeah, I liked this one. Pretty good writing, and it sounds great.

Dress

wtf is this song why is it so horny

horny taylor is weird stop being horny please

this song is okay i would not revisit it because its just weird. do not like this!!!

when carly rae jepsen says slide on through my window it is funny but when taylor sings i bought this dress so you could take it off i die

oh that second of silence was really good

[looks at the producer] [it’s jack antonoff] :)

This song weirds me out. I don’t like it. It had its moments production-wise but it was... weird.

This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

I expect good things from this. With a title like that? Give me a bop.

Currently not being a bop.

Okay, it was cute. Nothing amazing. Just… fine. Cute attempt.

oh i liked the spoken part thats what i expected from this song

Call It What You Want

this is about genitalia this is my prediction

It was not about genitalia.

This song is pretty good if you remove all the mentions to her lover and her man and her baby, which are all the same person, I guess.

This is disappointing.

JACK ANTONOFF BACKING VOCALS

I LOVE YOU JACK

umm anyways

OH HE DID IT AGAIN IM GONNA CRY i love this man

I expected so much from this track and the chorus just… disappointed me.

JACK!!! I LOVE YOU!!!! KEEP SINGING!!!!!

i love this man im gonna cry

The highlight of this song is the part where Jack Antonoff sings.

New Year’s Day

wow the reason why im doing this shit

look at him. :)

this song was cute. nothing special. just cute. very okay.

just. okay. yeah. pretty fine.

nothing special.

Final Thoughts On The Album

It was better than Lover.

I expected this to be a concept album, all about the drama she’s gotten into? But it was just boring love songs with some extra flair. I expected great things from this album, having only heard LWYMMD from it before this. A concept album that’s just an answer/clapback to everyone’s who wronged her à la Yellow Flicker Beat (I know it’s for a movie but that song slaps and I don’t know a thing about Hunger Games) would’ve been PERFECT but it was just... love songs. I need Taylor to stop singing about love and start serving us big meals.

I would not like to revisit this. Like, 5/10. It could’ve been a lot better, but it wasn’t because you’re too afraid to cross some lines, Taylor.

Final Ranking:

Dancing With Our Hands Tied

Getaway Car

Look What You Made Me Do

I Did Something Bad

Don’t Blame Me

New Year’s Day

Call It What You Want

...Ready For It?

This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

So It Goes...

End Game (feat. Ed Sheeran, Future)

Dress

Delicate

King Of My Heart

Gorgeous

taylor flop stream gone now

[carlyfrombleachers]

Gone Now’s brilliance, part 3 of 3

THi! It’s me, carlyfrombleachers, on Saturday, with a Bleachers post. This was supposed to be a Carly post, but all I can promise is that it’s coming out this year still.

Today’s post is the last one about Gone Now of the year. Get it? It’s funny because this year is over. Horrible.

This post will cover the last two tracks, I’m Ready To Move On/Mickey Mantle Reprise and Foreign Girls. Why do they get their own post? Because they’re special.

Okay, let’s begin.

I’m Ready, I’m Ready, I’m Ready To Move On

I’m Ready To Move On tracks are a staple of Bleachers albums, and have always been present in every single one of their two records. I’m Ready To Move On tracks are a reprise of the first song of the album, but with some extra flair. Strange Desire’s was a reprise of Wild Heart featuring Yoko Ono, and Gone Now’s doesn’t have any features. It’s really weird, because Jack produces for like, 5 pop girlies at this point? I’m sure any of them would be fine with being featured in one track. I guess we did get a non-pop non-girlie feature, with Bruce Springsteen in chinatown.

I imagine it’s because of the nature of Gone Now. It’s a record about Jack at its core, so it’s not that weird to not have any features. You have Carly and Lorde doing backing vocals, and that’s about it. Seeing as it’s a record so centered about his life, it’s only natural.

“I got one light and dim for another / Why wait a minute to tell her I love her?”

“Her” being Jack’s sister, of course. I think lyrics where people tell you to do things before it’s too late are so boring, lame and overdone, but I do kind of like this one. I think a singer realizing this themselves rather than them telling you, the listener, directly is just so cheesy and boring.

“I got one dream, been hurting me forever / Why wait a minute to tell her I’m better?”

Same meaning as the previous one, but I really love this one a lot more. It’s a smarter way of conveying that same message across. If something has been happening for a long time, you really don’t need to wait to tell someone how you feel. Just do it.

“Rolling thunder cursed my bedroom”

The only callback to Dream of Mickey Mantle in this whole track.

“Goodbye to the friends I had / Goodbye to my upstairs neighbor / Goodbye to the kids downstairs and / Everybody who lent me a favor / Goodbye to the dream I had / Yeah, I thought that I could save it / Goodbye to the kids I’d have and / Everybody who lent me a favor”

This is pretty much Goodbye’s chorus. So why is it here?

Well, there are a couple reasons:

If you remember the album progression, Dream of Mickey Mantle is about dreaming, Goodmorning is about waking up, the next eight tracks are about living your life, then you go to bed in I’m Ready to Move On/Mickey Mantle Reprise, and dream again in Foreign Girls. You’re technically saying goodbye to everything that’s happened that day (and life).

This ties into the theme of change, evolution and rebirth present in this later half. You’re letting all these people, all these dreams and wishes of yours go away, moving on from them. In a way, you’re no longer yourself: by leaving every single tie to you behind, you’re becoming a new person.

It transitions into the last track, Foreign Girls.

The Last Track, Foreign Girls

This track is about going to bed and dreaming again, keep that in mind.

“Gone now / Thinking what’s gone now / Like a part of me walked out, ooh / I know I’ve been a stranger lately”

Grief has been a huge part of Jack’s life. Since he’s moved on in the last track and left it behind himself, this crucial aspect of his life is gone. This makes him feel weird about himself, because he doesn’t know who he is if the pain is gone.

“[...] I’m at the pawn shop / Got you a ring and a wristwatch”

This adds to the desperation presented in Let’s Get Married. A pawn shop is where you go for a cheap/last-minute wedding ring, and he so desperately tries to (metaphorically) get married, he dreams of buying a ring.

“I’ve been walking circles / Lost on Sunday morning / Trying to find my way back home / ‘Cause I know I’ve been a stranger lately / [...] / Everybody passing / Can’t make out their faces [...]”

Here we have references to the dream state. Dreams are all pretty weird, as I’m sure most of you have experienced it. Your fingers might look really long, people lose their faces, it feels like you’re falling, it’s all a mess. But that’s not where it ends.

In Everybody Lost Somebody, Antonoff sings:

“Looking like everybody / Knowing everybody lost somebody”

“And there’s a reason I wake up alone in strange places / a reason I see myself in a million faces”

The fact that he can’t make out anyone’s face is not only because it is a dream, but also because he’s accepted the fact that he lost someone, which makes him somewhat unable to tell how other people think or feel. 

That’s not the end of it, still. Here’s what he sings on Hate That You Know Me:

“I’ve been talking to strangers, acting like I’m a stranger”

He’s pretended to be free from the weight of his life for so long that now that he’s finally freed from this huge weight, he kind of regrets it. It was all meant to be beautiful and great, but the reality is that he doesn’t know what to do.

“Goodbye to the friends I had / Goodbye to my upstairs neighbor / Goodbye to the kids downstairs and / Everybody who lent me a favor / Goodbye to the way we talked / Goodbye to the things we bought, yeah / You should know that I loved you all / I loved you all”

The ending is a bit morbid. I see a lot of people talking about how this reads like a suicide note, but in a really weird way, isn’t that the point? You’re, in a way, killing your old self, and freeing yourself from it.

Did you realize how this one also ends with the chorus of Goodbye? Yeah.

Since it’s a dream, he leaves everything he’s worked for behind. After finally moving on with his life, he moves on in his dreams as well, setting himself free from the weight and grief he had lived with for so long.

And… this is it. This is where the album ends.

What a journey.

Gone Now is my favorite album of all time, the joy I feel when I listen to it is genuinely unmatched, the way it builds this narrative and concludes it is absolutely phenomenal and I simply cannot recommend this album enough.

With that being said, goodbye, and have a great new year.

[carlyfrombleachers]

No post today. I’m feeling awful right now and I don’t know if things will change. I’m sorry.

[carlyfrombleachers]

Favorite CRJ Lyrics

I've had a very turbulent and busy week, so I'm doing something a bit more… easy? Something that doesn’t require much brainpower, I guess. This seems quick to write, so I’m using this idea up right now.

There’s not much to explain, I’m just going to be listing some of my favorite CRJ lyrics and why they’re my favorites. Let’s begin, then!

“Before you came into my life I missed you so bad”

- Call Me Maybe (Kiss) We’ve all heard Call Me Maybe, come on. I have no idea how it became the mega hit it became, but this is easily one of the best lines from that song. The thought of missing someone before even knowing them, with nothing to fill that emptiness before? Scandalous! I love it.

“So don’t break me tonight, this is crazy love and you know I’m gonna follow you home through the rain, 'cause I need your love and you know I’m gonna follow you home”

- Curiosity (Kiss) Curiosity is my favorite Kiss track, mostly because of the bridge, I think. Curiosity is a really odd track on a happy, cheerful album like Kiss, with its mysterious-sounding production (is that a thing?) and lyrics. Curiosity is about having a crush on someone, but you don’t know what to do about it, so you… follow them home. Not a very nice message, but I’m not gonna sit here and defend it. I like it. End of discussion.

“Ooh, I don’t care about my lipstick, I just wanna drive you to love, love, love, love”

- Drive (Kiss) This is a cute line in a cute song like Drive. Genius ruined the song for me by saying the lipstick being ruined is a reference to oral sex, which… what the fuck.

WHAT THE FUCK??????????

“I’ll be your sinner in secret”

- Run Away With Me (EMOTION) Unsurprising. I’ve talked about this in my EMOTION thinkpiece, but basically, most people love Run Away With Me because of this line in particular. Sure, the sinning might be about sex, but the massive majority of people would see it and interpret it as being queer, having to distance themselves from religion and more… “””“devout”””” followers, to avoid being branded as sinners.

“And if you ever think of me, I bet I’m just a flicker in your head”

- Your Type (EMOTION) In the sea of songs about being in love and loving every second of it, Your Type really stands out with the jealousy and anger fueling its lyrics. I think this line in particular is a great example of just what this track is about: putting yourself down constantly, believing you don’t stand a chance with who you want to be with.

“Buzzfeed buzzards and TMZ crows, what can I say that you don’t already know?”

- L. A. Hallucinations (EMOTION)

Carly had some level of fame before Call Me Maybe, but after such a tremendous hit, charting in basically every country, a song about such a drastic change in her life was expected. I chose this line in particular because those two are some of the biggest offenders when it comes to celebrity news. Nowadays, we have many other offenders of personal privacy (The Hollywood Fix comes to mind), but it’s good to see an artist directly targeting the people behind such low-hanging fruit in the field of journalism.

[you can pick any line]

- When I Needed You (EMOTION) It’s my favorite. I can’t really choose a line because I love all the lines.

“Show the way to us, the sky’s turning black now, Moon, what you trying to do? It’s too late for us and there’s no turning back now”

- Love Again (EMOTION) Easily my favorite out of all the bonus tracks, this verse really packs a punch in a track such as this one. This track’s about picking all your broken pieces up, taking some time to be alone and fixing yourself. By asking the Moon to “show the way to [her and who she’s dating]”, and by having the Moon reply with making the sky dark, it sends this message of no hope. The next line drives this point home, “It’s too late for us and there’s no turning back now”. There is nothing she can do, because the relationship is over, and she needs to start all over again. This one is a certified banger, by the way.

“Don’t fall in love, fall in love, fall in love, fall in love”

- The One (EMOTION Side B) The One is my favorite track in EMOTION Side B, I don’t know why. The song is about liking to be with someone, but not wishing to date them because of societal pressures and the idea that you must marry who you date. The bridge is just a nice view into Carly’s mind, as she begs her mind to not let her fall in love.

“I call you my lover, you call me your friend”

- Body Language (EMOTION Side B) This line is raw. I don’t have any commentary.

“I wanna do bad things to you, slide on through my window”

- Want You In My Room (Dedicated) hehe haha sex

“I could never give him enough, enough of my love, enough of my love, enough of my”

- Everything He Needs (Dedicated)

Everything He Needs is a track about being everything he (your lover) needs. But as the song goes on, doubts begin to sprout, not about him, but about you. Can you give him enough? Are you doing enough? Easily one of the best tracks from this record.

“I’ve been thinking we were over, I’ve been thinking, got to know for sure”

- For Sure (Dedicated)

For Sure is a great track. I think Dedicated starts out great and slowly gets a bit worse, but this track is really, really good and saves the last quarter of it. This is one of like, six lines in the track, so there’s not much of an analysis to be made.

“Can’t look back at broken pieces, and the hearts we broke, we broke for reasons”

- This Is What They Say (Dedicated Side B) This Is What They Say is very much like Everything He Needs and The One: you’re in love, you’re happy, everything’s going great, but something inside you says things aren’t so good: you’re not doing very well and there’s something that must be taken care of. The juxtaposition of the chorus and the bridge at the end is simply phenomenal.

“You took my clothes off, said ‘it’s getting hotter’”

- Fake Mona Lisa (Dedicated Side B) hehe haha sex

“And if you wanna know why I have no regrets, sometimes you gotta dig low to get ‘round to it”

- Comeback (Dedicated Side B) Comeback is really beautiful. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a Carly and Jack collab, after all. I can’t even explain why it’s so beautiful, it just… is. It sounds so incredibly amazing. Comeback is the best track from Dedicated Side B, and I can’t even tell you why.

“I’m high as a kite when I’m with him all of the time”

- Now I Don’t Hate California After All (Dedicated Side B)

hehe haha weed

Sorry for the low-effort content, the thinkpiece regarding the EMOTION Deluxe tracks will come on the 26th. What are your favorite CRJ lyrics and why? Bye. I’m bad at finishing these.

[carlyfrombleachers]

Gone Now’s Brilliance, part 2 of 3

It’s going to be three. Last part will be out on the 19th.

If you come here for CRJ, see you next week, but PLEASE give Bleachers a chance while you’re still here. Thanks? Thanks.

This part will be about tracks 4 through 10, Don’t Take the Money to Nothing Is U. I’m leaving tracks 11 and 12 for the last part because I have a lot to say about them!!! I have a lot.

Well, let’s begin.

The two singles: Don’t Take The Money and Everybody Lost Somebody

I don’t really think these are the face of Gone Now (since that title easily goes to Foreign Girls), but that’s what singles are meant to be, they’re meant to give you a taste of what’s to come. I do like both of these, and I think they give you a taste of Gone Now if you listen to them randomly. The themes of change and evolution are present in Don’t Take the Money and grief and death are present in Everybody Lost Somebody.

Money: Taken. Music: Streamed. Hotel: Triv-- it’s 2020.

“Somebody broke me once / Love was a currency / A shimmering balance act / A thing that I left at that”

Lorde actually does backing vocals on Don’t Take the Money, which makes sense considering Jack was producing Melodrama at that exact same time. Since I am talking about Lorde and Jack I feel obligated to share the iconic powerpoint, which is a certified heritage document. I cannot tell if this thing is a high-effort shitpost or someone’s genuine thoughts. This thing is a fucking mess and I love it. 

“You steal the air out of my lungs, you make me feel it / I pray for everything we lost, buy back the secrets / Your hand forever’s all I want / Don’t take the money, don’t take the money”

This track is just beautiful. I don’t even know what to say. It’s just beautiful.

“And I cut off my t-shirt sleeves / And claim a new continent”

This is a reference to Lorde’s Supercut.

“So I fall / Into continents and cars”

Or is Lorde’s Supercut a reference to Don’t Take The Money???

Actually, the continent is a reference to change. I just wanted an excuse to bring Melodrama up again.

Trying To Get Yourself Back Home Soon: A Guide

“I think pain is waiting alone in the corner / I’m trying to get myself back home soon / Looking like everybody / Knowing everybody lost somebody”

Yeah.

Some interesting parallels between this track and Hate That You Know Me can be drawn, the first one being the contradictions between “Acting like I’m a stranger / [...] And you know what? I hate it.” and “Looking like everybody / Knowing everybody lost somebody”.

Grief is… weird. I’ve lost many friends over the course of the years, but they never died. Not to go into very personal territory, my parents get transferred to other states a lot because of their job, so I have to leave all my friends behind and start things all over again, which is really annoying. I’ve lost an uncle and my grandfather, but because of how much we travel, I never really had much of a connection with them. When I found out they died, I didn’t know how to feel. They died, but I never had much contact with them anyways. So… it doesn’t affect me, right? They’re strangers to me.

You see how I used the word ‘stranger’ there?

Because I don’t know who they really are. I never got to know them. They’re complete strangers to me. To them, I’m also a stranger. And that’s okay, I think. I don’t know, it’s weird. But I do hate it sometimes, when I see my aunts and mother reminiscing about times with my uncle - how their words sometimes come to a halt. How my father talks about his father and after letting out a chuckle, very abruptly stops talking.

But I understand why. Because they lost someone.

Even though you might have not gone through the pain of losing someone, you sometimes notice people who have are still in pain. They’re still grieving. And you want to say something, but you don’t know what to say, because you’ve never been there. You don’t really know what it’s like. You don’t know what you’d like to hear, so you don’t know what to say. It’s weird.

I hate being a stranger, because I don’t know what to say.

EMOTIONal moment OVER.

All My Heroes Got Tired So Let’s Get Married

These two are kind of weird? During my first listen, these stood out as lackluster to me, but they started growing on me extremely fast. After my first week, Let’s Get Married was my favorite. I think Goodmorning is my favorite now, but I still really love Let’s Get Married.

You could say… I’d say let’s get married to Let’s Get Married.

All Of Our Heroes Fading, Now I Can’t Stand To Be Alone

“All my heroes got tired / And all the days, they got short / And the love that I dreamt of / Came to me at my worst”

Sometimes, things just don’t work out, either because of you or because of them. And there’s not really anything you can do, because that’s just how life is. 

“I remember driving out of this state / No, nothing dies / ‘til somebody’s soul does / Somebody sold us all kinds of lies”

“Somebody’s soul does” and “somebody sold us” are homonyms, which makes it almost impossible to figure out what he’s saying here. I personally had to go on Genius to figure it out, if I’m wrong I blame them. 

“Yeah, all the nights I don’t remember / Are the ones I can’t forget / When all your heroes get tired / I’ll be something better yet”

The theme of change and constant improvement becomes very clear in this one. I think the grief portion is just completely dropped, making a return only slightly in the closing track, and the music just focuses on talking about wishing to improve.

“Into focus I’ll be coming / Into focus I’ll be waiting / Into focus I’ll be dreaming / Into focus I’ll be something better yet”

Yeah, this is just about change. Not a whole lot to say here. Next!

Why Don’t You Change Me At All Costs: How Shit Starts, Most Of The Time

“I wrote this the day after Trump was elected. When the election happened I felt not only devastated but also freaked out [...]. I thought, ‘bad people don’t live in our house.’ Who is it? What was it? It made me want to grab everything and say, ‘let’s get married, let’s stay here.’ It’s not quite the love song it seems."

Let’s Get Married is beautiful. You can feel the desperation in the lyrics and in his voice, it’s everywhere, the message is just completely desperate.

“I want my honey / They think they know what we’re going through, they don’t know nothing / And I know it’s bad when we look out / But bad, bad people don’t live in our house, so / I’m gonna get right for you, honey / Take all my medicine, spend you all my money, yeah / And I know it’s hard enough to love me / But I woke up in a safe house singing honey, let’s get married”

An interesting contradiction between Let’s Get Married and Don’t Take The Money is love. He says “love was a currency, a shimmering balance act” in Don’t Take The Money, and later sings “take all my medicine, spend you all my money”, which really shows how this is a desperate track. It’s about desperation.

“Change me at all costs / Starlight and star-crossed / Take me, so breathless / We could be reckless / Why don’t you change me at all costs? / [...]”

I love the bridge in Let’s Get Married, the way it beats you up with the mix of wishing so intensely to change into something else but not even bothering to hide the desperation and fear you feel when thinking “what if I can’t change?” It’s just beautiful.

Where Everything Changes: Goodbye

“Uh, Goodbye… it’s a reprise of Goodmorning, good morning to the cops, good morning to my upstairs neighbor, kids at 42, I’m waking up and as the album starts to move on because at Goodbye you’re starting to get into the second half of the album, goodbye to the friends I had, goodbye to my upstairs neighbor, it’s bringing back these concepts. The whole album is… it’s a lifetime, that’s the… that’s the idea, that’s why in the cover, everyone’s like ‘are you a dictator?’ and I’m like ‘no man, I’m dead. I’m supposed to be dead.’ [chuckles] I thought “if I was dead what would I look like?” I’d be… in black and white, I’d be regal, dressed up, that’s the picture you have on a mantle, if I wasn’t here anymore. So Goodbye is the beginning of this goodbye statement.” - Jack Antonoff on his ‘About Gone Now’ series

I love Goodbye.

A huge shift happens when we reach track 8. Goodbye is in many ways another version of Goodmorning, sharing similar names and chorus.

“Good morning to the cops (oh) / Good morning to my upstairs neighbor / And to the kids at 42 / Anyone who lent me a favor”

“Goodbye to the friends I had (goodbye) / Goodbye to my upstairs neighbor / Goodbye to the kids downstairs and / Everybody who lent me a favor”

This huge shift in tone represents that the wish for evolution, the grief, the pain, come to a halt. This, of course, leads to the conclusion of the record, and the next four tracks.

“And I finally found my stride when I walked in the background / Everybody used to ball with the war, with the pain / Got my song and I feel like giving up rainbows and crying / Everybody lost somebody, ooh / Tearing it all off and the war and the whoa-whoa-whoa / Two-dollar singing in my song in the fan like whoa / Only wanna rhythm in the side when I’m at your window / Every night I walk past your window”

This verse, the way I see it, is about realizing it’s alright to step outside of the spotlight and look at things from a different point of view. And because of this, you realize how weird everything is: how people are not like they thought you were, how you aren’t what you thought you were. I referenced Melodrama again. Fuck. I’m mad at myself now, next track.

I Miss That Nothing Is U

I somehow always forget I Miss Those Days is on Gone Now. I like them. I think they’re cool and sweet and interesting and fun.

“Hey, I Know I Was Lost”, Said Every Male In A Movie With Forests

“It’s… I’ve had this line forever, ‘I know I was lost but I miss those days’, it’s about, how in the… seemingly lowest moments of your life, it’s kind of the best. You’ve got no money, you’re driving around in a van, no one’s coming to your shows, no direction, no one gives a shit, but those were kind of the days.”

“Yeah, we talk about getting older / But there’s so much we haven’t done yet / Some days I’m not here, I don’t get dressed / So I curse my bedroom but I left it all alone”

Cursing your bedroom is a callback to Dream Of Mickey Mantle’s “Rolling thunder cursed my bedroom”. Leaving it all alone is a reference to Jack leaving his home before he was even eighteen to tour in other states.

“Those days when I’d sit in my sister’s rooftop / Watching the city burn into the night / I’m not sure that we were meant to survive / I was 16 in a van, driving myself to Florida / Part of me never left that seat ‘cause / Nights and weekends still looking for a dream”

These lines are clearly about Antonoff’s younger sister’s passing, and “watching the city burn into the night” is about 9/11. I like how Jack’s music is not just about his experiences and his relationships, it’s also about how others affect him, about how things that happened in his life made him feel. It’s his life. Gone Now is kind of his autobiography, but it’s made in such a beautiful way, packaged in such a charming fashion, he manages to make it about each and every single one of us.

I’m getting too emotional. Last track!

Nothing’s Really Changed Me, Nothing Like You

This one is emotional. Dammit!

“It’s the only real, just straight ahead love song, without a twist. [...] How can someone be so beautiful and you can be such a mess, that’s my way of saying, you know, how I’m freaking out about all these little things.”

Nothing Is U is just… beautiful. There’s nothing else to be said. It’s just absolutely and undeniably beautiful.

“Will it feel like thunder When the long drive’s over? I will walk in silence with you Yes, I will wander in silence with you Yes, I will wander in silence with you ‘Cause nothing’s really changed me Nothing like you No, nothing, nothing, nothing Nothing is you”

And Terrible Thrills Hits Again

The only song out of all of these I’ve talked about not present in Terrible Thrills Vol. 3 is Goodbye, which is a shame. Don’t Take The Money has its demo, Everybody Lost Somebody has a beautiful cover by Julien Baker, All My Heroes has a version named All My Heroes/Hate That You Slow Me Down by MUNA which also features Hate That You Know Me, Let’s Get Married has that beautiful Mitski cover which can make everyone gay if you stream it enough times, I Miss Those Days has a groovy remix titled I Miss The Last Days Of Disco, and Nothing Is U gets a new, cleaned up version titled And, Nothing Is You (heh) which is better than the original in my opinion. Once again, I’ll talk about these tracks later, although there are very minor changes suited to a single post where I talk about all of them.

That’s all for today, thank you so much for reading, follow and like and reblog and… you know. Yeah. Bye!

[carlyfrombleachers]

i dont have spotify i have deezer

my stanning game is strong as fuck btw

[carlyfrombleachers]

EMOTION, because a CRJ blog needs to talk about EMOTION.

Some things in life are inevitable. Life, death, consumption of media, crying, interacting with others, and many other things, they are simply inevitabilities. Another inevitability is a Carly Rae Jepsen blog talking about EMOTION. It is something every blog-runner is eventually faced with, because of how impactful this record is for everyone who has listened to it. We will all write our EMOTION thinkpieces someday.

This post will only talk about the standard 12 tracks, Run Away With Me to When I Needed You. I will write about the Deluxe tracks (Black Heart, IDJCHTD, Favorite Colour, NGTHY, Love Again) some other time. Okay? Okay.

Also, I just realized my last two posts had the word “brilliance” on their titles. I do not know why that happened, maybe I’m a fan of the word, maybe they’re both brilliant! I don’t know. But the word “brilliance” is being banned from my titles from now on.

With that being said, let’s begin.

The First Three Tracks

I have talked about how important the first three tracks of an album are in my previous post, about Gone Now, but basically, the first three tracks are how they hook you, how they pull you in, how they make you stream it over and over. And EMOTION’s appetizers of Run Away With Me, EMOTION and I Really Like You are quite the solid ones. Run Away With Me wins every single “which is the best CRJ song” poll, so I really don’t want to talk about it, because I think everyone recognizes this is a good track. Personally, I think it is okay. Please don’t crucify me over this??? Thanks.

EMOTION is also a great track which I feel embodies what EMOTION (the album) is about. Which is why it shares a title with EMOTION (the album again). And this is what EMOTION (the album) is about. Emotion. I know, Queen of Subtlety, everyone please clap.

In all seriousness, EMOTION (the album!!!) is about love and the emotions that drive us. The love part is introduced with Run Away With Me, and the emotions, with EMOTION (the track). Run Away With Me is about unconditional love, about wanting to run away taking only the person you love the most. About forbidden love. About running away from all expectations and pursuing only love. EMOTION (the track again) is about evoking emotions in others, in those who you loved or still love, about wanting them to experience all emotions you two experienced together because you feel wronged by them.

And then we get to I Really Like You. I don’t like I Really Like You. You could say I Really Don’t Like It. And the fact it was the lead single? That’s just a weird choice. Sure, it’s catchy, and Tom Hanks is in the music video, but it’s just… not impactful enough? It’s very lovey-dovey, but that’s all it is. Love. Really Liking someone. There are better songs out there. But well, the first two tracks are so good, I think it hardly matters.

The Second Three Tracks..????

The middle of an album is weird. This is usually where themes are explored and pushed far. Lorde’s Melodrama features The Louvre, single Liability and Hard Feelings, where the themes of love shine through after their introduction through Green Light and Sober. Bleachers’ Gone Now features lead single Don’t Take The Money, along with Everybody Lost Somebody and All My Heroes. EMOTION’s tracks 4 through 6 are Gimmie Love, All That and Boy Problems.

These are weird tracks. The theme of love is very loosely present in all these songs, and the 80’s vibes shine very strongly here (especially in All That), but there is not much connecting all of them. Gimmie Love is about doing it with an ex, who you wish still loved you, All That is about being and doing everything for someone, and always being there for them, and then you have Boy Problems, which is, well, about how Boys Suck. The storyline of the record is confusing at best, much like Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia. Future Nostalgia, much like EMOTION, is an album about those cool disco vibes and there is not really a present, recurring theme shared between most of its tracks. The progression on EMOTION is basically, “I love you, let’s run away”, then “I hope you suffer, because I kind of want you back”, followed by “Hey, I like you!” which then becomes “let’s have sex”, and then “I want to always be here for you and do everything for you and everything about you is incredible”... only to be stopped by “hey men are kind of trash aren’t they?”, the progression is all over the place. A record doesn’t need to be composed of only tracks that tell a concise story, of course, and I’ll talk about what this means for EMOTION later on.

The Second Set Of Second Three Tracks

“When you need me / I will never let you fall apart / When you need me / I will be your candle in the dark”

This is for later, don’t worry. :)

Tracks 7 through 9 are also quite the odd bunch, with a bunch of odd tracks with zero correlation between each other. 

Making the Most of the Night is about being there for who you love no matter what, much like All That, with a sick beat instead of the more chill vibes. Your Type is a song about jealousy, one that is very welcome on EMOTION because it displays both themes of love and emotions very well. Your Type shines. It ranks very highly on every EMOTION ranking I see because it’s hard-hitting. “I’m not the type of girl for you / And I’m not going to pretend / I’m the type of girl you call more than a friend / And I break all the rules for you / Break my heart and start again / I’m not the type of girl you call more than a friend”? Damn. Let’s Get Lost is kind of meh. Run Away With Me did the whole “running away from everyone” deal a lot better. But I think it sets out to do a thing and it does the thing. Not particularly impressive, but it’s good.

I have seen people go insane because of someone saying their favorite EMOTION song was bad or annoying, so if you have felt personally offended by any of these, send me an ask. End all your asks with “+” so I know you hate me. It’s okay. My self-esteem is quite high nowadays. I also wish to keep track of which of you to watch out for. Unless you send them anonymously, of course. In that case, I hope I know how to evade you. I have seen this happen very frequently with people who like Let’s Get Lost, so that’s why I’m apologizing.

Why didn’t I apologize at the end, though? Well, it’s because the next three are my favorites.

The End: The Last Three Tracks

The last songs of an album are magical. All the themes shine after their exposition in earlier tracks, allowing the record’s message to be complete and meaningful. Of course, not every record needs to do this, but it’s a lot cooler if they do.

L. A. Hallucinations is a nice song about a love story that starts being interrupted because of fame and how impactful it is to one’s life, Warm Blood is this eerie-sounding track about creating this façade and hiding who you are, only to meet someone who makes you give up on everything because you wish to be completely truthful to them, and When I Needed You is the best Carly Rae Jepsen song. No, I am absolutely not biased, shut up.

I think the album’s title, and its theme of emotion, shine on the last tracks. The build-up for the closing track is simply wonderful, and it just ties everything together. The connections that opening and closing tracks (or simply first and second halves) have is a beautiful thing to witness. Let’s take Melodrama as an example, since I’ve been listening to it a lot lately.

Melodrama is divided into two main parts: Green Light through Hard Feelings, tracks 1 through 6; and Loveless through Perfect Places, tracks 6 through 11. The first half of the album is dedicated to Lorde sharing how she feels, how her breakup makes her feel, how harshly she feels everything. How she loved and how she is no longer loved, how she didn’t care about what happened to her as long as she was having fun and how she sees that what she was doing hurts herself. The second half is Lorde accepting that she is not loved by him anymore, that it is not really her fault and that she has to move on, knowing that her ex may or may not realize what he’s done. That’s why we get Sober II, when Sober was present in the first half, and Liability (Reprise), when Liability was also in the first half. The first half was about hurting and feeling awful, while the second part is about how you're not the only awful person out there. In Liability, Lorde believes wholeheartedly that she is a burden to everyone, that she is too much, that she needs to disappear, but in Liability (Reprise), she mocks such an idea, or perhaps even comes into terms with the fact that she is a liability, and then follows it up with “Whatcha gonna do?”, because if she admits such a thing and is not bothered by it, then it doesn’t matter. After reflecting on whether or not she’s a liability, she doesn’t care anymore.

EMOTION's When I Needed You is basically Melodrama's second half crammed into a single track, and oh, does it sound good. This track fixes every single problem I had with EMOTION's inconsistency, its contradictory themes. Because I can just argue that it's foreshadowing. This is the part where I argue that it's foreshadowing.

When I Needed You, And How Great Closing Tracks Are Important

When I Needed You basically turns EMOTION on its head. Everything about this track is straight up perfection. All the emotions that kept hiding from you and refusing to show themselves finally do in what is, in my opinion, the best closing track of any pop record.

It’s just… the way everything sounds, the amazing production, the lyrics, it’s all just… so perfect??? EMOTION (the track), Your Type and Boy Problems kind of don’t fit the theme of the rest of the record, they’re not about how amazing it is to be loved, and instead are about how painful it is (for EMOTION and Your Type) and how love does not matter (Boy Problems). When I Needed You somehow manages to tie all these themes together with stellar lyricism.

“Sometimes I wish that I could change / But not for me, for you / So we could be together forever” 

The sheer power of these lyrics, oh wow. Carly is just so tired of things not working out that she wishes to become someone else. She wants to be who she isn’t. All of that, just because she likes someone who doesn't like her for who she is.

“But I know, I know that I won’t change for you / ‘cause where were you for me? / When I needed someone / When I needed someone / When I needed you”

Very few records reach this level of… I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. But not every track can take the premise of “I wish I were someone else, but is it worth it?” and do it like When I Needed You does.

Remember what I said in All That, how I saved those lyrics for later? This is the part I bring them up.

“When you need me / I will never let you fall apart / When you need me / I will be your candle in the dark”

“[...] where were you for me? / When I needed someone [...] / When I needed you”

Carly wishes to be everything for someone in All That, she wishes to do literally anything for her lover, but in When I Needed You, she reveals her lover won’t do a single thing for her. Her lover does not care for her. And it doesn’t matter what she does, it doesn’t matter because she is not who she wants her to be.

I’m a Bleachers blog too, so I’m bringing Strange Desire up. I think Strange Desire, much like EMOTION, suffers from not having a very cohesive theme between all its tracks. Most of them are about love, and then you have I Wanna Get Better, and some more songs about love, but the album is quite… tame? It sets out to do something and it does it, and I like it.

The final track of Strange Desire, “Who I Want You To Love”, is quite the odd one. Whereas most songs in Bleachers’ first record are about wanting to see someone evolve while also struggling with evolving yourself, Who I Want You To Love is not really like that. It’s more like a “I give up” letter.

“I will love who you want me to love / Oh, I will bleed when you want me to bleed / But I don’t wanna know too much of anything / Because it all hurts me”

WIWYTL is simply about giving up. Going so far you don’t care about what happens to you. And it’s a perfect closing track for a record like Strange Desire. It has feeling. It has emotion. It has power, strong themes, a message. It’s beautiful. If you only come here for my CRJ content, I highly recommend you listen to Bleachers. It’s a bit wonky at first, but I’m sure you’ll love it if you give it a try.

Back to CRJ though, When I Needed You is an example of how to do a closing track. The weird, contradictory messages that popped up every now and then? It was self-doubt. Doubt that this relationship could grow. That maybe everything was not so great. She experiences a breakup, then falls in love again, and again, and again, only to realize she was changing too much for the people she loved, she was doing too much, and she doesn’t need to do too much. She needs to be happy and make others happy being herself, instead of changing who she is. And this is the main lesson you should take from this song: if you’re changing who you are just to satisfy someone you love, and you’re not happy with who you’re becoming, stop. It is not worth it.

I think every track has a message that can be taken from it, and the most important ones lie in Run Away With Me and When I Needed You. And I think that’s why so many people LOVE Run Away With Me. Because they love the message. Because of how beautiful the lyrics are, and because of how many people identify with wanting to run away with who they love, because they’re queer, because others would not understand, because being LGBT+ is seen as sinful. Or maybe it’s about sex, and that’s what the sinning implies, but I like my (and many other people’s) interpretation better.

Well, that’s all I have for today! Have a great month and happy holidays. As we approach December, I might start pumping out extra content, potentially talking about other records I love (Melodrama lol) or some other things I feel like you (my beautiful lovely readers) might enjoy! If there’s an album you want me to listen to, feel free to send me recs through the asks function! Goodbye.

[carlyfrombleachers]

Gone Now’s Brilliance (part 1 of ???)

Hi, it's me, carlyfrombleachers, back again with another one of my weekly writeups on CRJ and Jack Antonoff. Today I am talking about Jack Antonoff because I talked about Carly last week. I’ll always be alternating between talking about Carly and Jack for these saturday writeups, so if you come here for Carly Rae Jepsen content, I’ll see you next week, I guess.

First of all, Gone Now AOTD.

I mean it!

Very few albums have such a cohesive and clear theme, and Gone Now’s themes of grief, change and evolution are such powerful themes, beautifully tied together by Antonoff’s production and lyricism. Gone Now is a masterpiece.

So, for part 1 of my little series about Gone Now, I’ll be talking about the first three tracks.

Dream of Mickey Mantle + Goodmorning + Hate That You Know Me

“You know when you wake up, and… before you’re actually awake, when there’s like, that split-second where you’re not, like, bombarded by the weight of everything? You know what I mean? It’s like, right as you wake up, you-- it’s like everything is beautiful, and then poof: you know, and you remember, you remember specific things like ‘this is due’, ‘this person is mad at me’, all these things, but you also remember like those deep, guttural, weighty things, and there’s that moment right before, and, uh, this song is written from that perspective, so… uh, it was written as the first song of the album, but then I wanted to have one that was sort of from a dream first, so, this song is called ‘Goodmorning’.”

 I mean, yeah, that’s pretty accurate.

Jack has mentioned in many places how the opening track, Dream Of Mickey Mantle, is meant to represent dreaming and slowly waking up, transitioning into Goodmorning, and the closing track, Foreign Girls, represents going to bed and dreaming once again.

The first three tracks of an album are very important, as they serve to give you a sample of what’s to come. Lorde’s Melodrama features single Green Light, Sober, and Homemade Dynamite, Carly Rae Jepsen’s Emotion features singles Run Away With Me and I Really Like You, along with title track Emotion, Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia features single Don’t Start Now, title track Future Nostalgia and Physical.

Gone Now’s first three Dream Of Mickey Mantle, Goodmorning and Hate That You Know Me do a great job at showing you how the themes of this album work together, and what they are. Dream Of Mickey Mantle is about grief, Goodmorning is about moving on, and Hate That You Know Me is about wishing to change.

Let’s talk about Dream Of Mickey Mantle first, then

“I miss those days, so I sing a ‘Don’t Take The Money’ song”

Heh. This is quite funny because I Miss Those Days and Don’t Take The Money are songs in Gone Now.

Dream Of Mickey Mantle is a great opening track, knocking everything out and showing you Bleachers is fucking crazy. The production on this track is absurd, and the lyrics don’t disappoint, either.

The goal of the first track is to show you what you’re getting into, to pave the road. Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia is a great example of this, in my opinion. “You want a timeless song, I wanna change the game”? Sign me up! Dream Of Mickey Mantle starts with “All the hope I had when I was young, I hope I wasn’t wrong”, representing Gone Now (and Bleachers)’s ambition.

“Rolling thunder cursed my bedroom / I heard from your mother, she don’t recognize you / Mickey Mantle left on a Sunday / And all of the neighborhood rushes home to pray”

I did not know this because I’m not American, but Mickey Mantle was a baseball player who passed on a Sunday, and according to Jack, that was his first contact with death. It makes sense to have your first contact with death inspire the first song of an album about, well, death.

So, that’s Dream Of Mickey Mantle. A pretty simple opening track that conveys a lot of emotion and sets you up for the next track.

The Next Track: Goodmorning

This is my favorite track, I’m biased, whatever.

Goodmorning is about waking up and feeling the weight of the world on your back, as you prepare to take on the day. The production is strong as usual, with echoes of Strange Desire’s opening track, Wild Heart, playing on the background. That’s where all the “dream far away” shouts come from, and I think that’s neat.

“Good morning to the cops / Good morning to my upstairs neighbor / And to the kids at 42 / Anyone who lent me a favor / I wish that I could stop / Now I wish that I could live a little safer / I’m watching all of the nights go blue / Somebody lend me a favor soon”

He wishes good morning in Goodmorning, your fave could never.

In all seriousness, though, the chorus is just so beautiful. You can feel the desperation in his voice. He carries the weight of his life on his back, and feels crushed by it, he feels unsafe, he needs help, but all he can do is tell everyone good morning. Damn. This is some #deep shit.

Goodmorning continues the storyline present in Dream Of Mickey Mantle, with a lot of Jack’s personal experiences and memories sprinkled in. 

And then, we get to Hate That You Know Me, where the third element of Gone Now is introduced: change.

Some Days I Wish This Track Was Better: No Luck!

I have a love-hate relationship with this song. I love the lyrics a lot, but I feel like the performance is a bit… weak? The chorus seems out of place? I don’t know, this track is odd.

“I keep talking to strangers / Acting like I’m a stranger / I look like I’ve been up all night / And you know what? I hate it”

Beautiful.

“I put my things into boxes / Carry all of my old lies / Rubber banded my past tight / And you know what? I hate it”

Hate That You Know Me is just… so great. The message of wanting to change but being unable to because of everyone who knows you is simply beautiful.

“Sometimes I hate that you know me so well / Sometimes I hate that you know me so well / Some days I wish that I wasn’t myself / No luck! / And I hate that you know me so well”

This is perfect, I love this track actually.

Fun fact I want to mention but cannot do it naturally so I am just killing any and all progression to say this: Carly Rae Jepsen does backing vocals on this track. That’s all.

“Washed the fear from my hands off / Caught mistakes on the sidewalk / I look like I’ve been up all night / And you know what? I hate it”

See? I love the lyrics. The lyrics are great. If you haven’t listened to Hate That You Know Me, you’re probably thinking “wow! these lyrics are amazing!” and yeah! It’s true! But if you listen to it you will be sad.

“So I keep talking ‘bout eighteen / ‘Cause I can’t let go of the same dream / Rubber banded my past tight / And you know what? I hate it!”

This is what the rest of the song should’ve sounded like. The way Jack screams “I HATE IT!” is everything to me. The chorus is just disappointing.

But enough of me gushing, Hate That You Know Me does a great job at establishing the last theme of the album: change.

Many elements of these tracks are reused in later tracks, I’m Ready To Move On/Mickey Mantle Reprise reuses lyrics from Dream Of Mickey Mantle, Goodbye and Goodmorning are very similar and somewhat mimic each other, the stranger comparison is brought back in Foreign Girls, making all these tracks connected.

The attack of Terrible Thrills, Vol. 3

I do wish to go into more detail on Terrible Thrills Vol. 3 some other Saturday, but what you need to know right now is that two of these songs are reimagined in that album: Mickey Mantle Comes Alive and Goodmorning After A Breakup/Vietnam Documentary are reimaginations of… I’m not saying. You can figure out which songs they’re reimagining. I trust you. So… yeah. That’s it from me, I’ll see you next week with a Carly Rae Jepsen post or in December with a Bleachers post, hopefully talking about B3! Bye!

[carlyfrombleachers]

there is??? new merch???

WHY is my country’s economy shit WHY CANT I BUY THIS FUCKING MERCH

umm anyways plugging for jack store.bleachersmusic.com ♥♥

[carlyfrombleachers]

its out

https://youtu.be/tO-7mgmtiD8

JACK YOURE GONNA KILL ME https://youtu.be/E4uA85iWsIg therES TWO OF THEM AHAHHJADHJSDJHASHJASHJAJHS

[carlyfrombleachers]

The Brilliance of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “I Know You Have A Girlfriend

No, this is not a joke.

Not enough people talk about Kiss. It’s nowhere close to Emotion, sure, but Kiss has its fair share of great songs, held back by the trio cursed with sounding the exact same: Turn Me Up, Hurt So Good and More Than A Memory. Oh, and Beautiful (feat. Justin Bieber). Some songs are just… bland. Carly Rae has the following she has because of her love songs, and Kiss is exactly that: an album full of love songs. But most of them are very bubblegum and teenage-y, nothing like what Jepsen shows us in Emotion or Dedicated.

And in the middle of all these, you may find some songs you enjoy: singles This Kiss, Tonight I’m Getting Over You, Call Me Maybe and Owl City’s Good Time are not particularly bad or bland and do a pretty good job at, well, getting their message across. But, as you might’ve guessed from the title, I’m not here to talk about any of those songs. I’m here to talk about I Know You Have A Girlfriend.

Now, Kiss has had a thousand Deluxe releases. Some of the Deluxe releases include Drive, Sweetie, Wrong Feels So Right, and… you guessed it. I Know You Have A Girlfriend. I don’t think any of these are bad, but they don’t stand a chance against I Know You Have A Girlfriend. Well, maybe I should start talking about the actual song, right?

The picture painted by the first two verses of the song are basically that there’s a guy following Carly, and he wants to do something with her, to which Carly says “no, i know you have a girlfriend, this is wrong, please leave me alone”. This is… relatable enough, but why make a song about this? “You talk to me in riddles” “You treat me like a crime”

The guy continues his advances, “tiptoeing around all the facts”, and Carly seems to now enjoy his presence, but is still aware of the fact that he has a girlfriend, and it’s wrong to get involved with this guy. “You talk to me in riddles” “You cover me in rhymes”

And then, we reach the bridge.

“You’re sick with dreams about it” “Didn’t I, didn’t I blush” “I think, I think, I think I want it way too much”

Huh? What is she saying?

Is she singing from the guy’s perspective now?

When I listened to this song for the first time, I was really confused. The bridge doesn’t seem to fit the rest of the song, it’s a song about how this guy wants to be with her while having a girlfriend, and after turning him down for the whole song, she now sings “I think I want it way too much”? What poorly written female character is this?

Well, all those questions are answered with the next verse:

“I know you have a girlfriend” “And it cuts me like a knife” “I know you have a girlfriend” “And she’s gonna be your wife” “And every time you speak” “You’re lying through your t-t-teeth!” “I know you have a girlfriend” “Tell me where is she tonight” “I know you have a girlfriend” “Cause I heard you had a fight” “I know you have a girlfriend” “Why won’t you let me be?” “I’m begging you, stop begging me!”

Did. A. Full. One. Eighty.

Carly was just pretending to not like this guy, and asking him countless times to leave her alone, but in the end, she was the one going after him! She was the one crazy about him! She’s turning him down so much because he has a girlfriend, but she wants to get rid of the girlfriend! (An alternate interpretation of this is that she wants the guy’s girlfriend, but this is kind of stretching it a lot, but who cares, the sapphics that might find this blog now have a reason to listen to this bop.)

Carly is the one sick with the dreams, she’s the one who wants it way too much. And she does an amazing job at hiding this. Lyrics that completely change in meaning once you factor in the fact that she likes this dude include “Somebody should sound the alarm”, “You’re lying through your t-t-t-teeth” and “I’m begging you, stop begging me”. The last one gets especially dark, where her twisted love means she needs to end this dude’s relationship at all costs, and acts as if he’s begging her to do it, like... damn. Damn.

It’s just… so unexpected? In an album like Kiss, where every song is either “wow, you’re so cool and nice, we should date, I love you” or Tonight I’m Getting Over You, it’s an amazing subversion of expectations to have this seemingly boring song take such an odd route and deliver a punch to your face. It’s fantastic. Most songs of hers are very upfront about their message, such as Happy Not Knowing or Party for One, and it’s really, really cool to have one where her true message, her true feelings, take some time to reveal themselves.

Well, we’ve reached the end. Follow for more CRJ content, I guess.

[carlyfrombleachers]

im really upset right now

okay so there’s this discord bot named Chuu that basically syncs up with last.fm and shows your scrobbles, compares them to other users’, etc. BUT SOMEONE JUST FUCKING SHOWED UP WITH 4751 SCROBBLES AND HAS NOW BEATEN ME WHEN I WAS SO SO CLOSE TO REACHING 1ST PLACE GLOBALLY.

THIS WAS FROM YESTERDAY. WHAT. THE. FUCK.

[carlyfrombleachers]

this is my first post

jack please drop b3 this month thank you!!!!