Girli runs through her punchy new EP, ‘Hot Mess’ track by track – from her patriarchy smashing single ‘Hot Mess’ to introspective closer, ‘Can I Say Baby?’.
Hot Mess
I wrote ‘Hot Mess’ because I was sick of being talked down to by guys in the music industry who thought that they could mansplain the meaning of my songs and tell me what I should and shouldn’t wear, how I should conduct myself in public, that I should wear more makeup etc. when I saw friends who were boys in bands acting way more reckless than me and never being told what to do. Ask any woman in music, and she’ll tell you a similar story guaranteed. I wanted to write a song that said: “FUCK YOU I’M ALLOWED TO BE MESSY, I’M ALLOWED TO BE LOUD, I’M ALLOWED TO BE OPINIONATED AND YOU DON’T HAVE A RIGHT TO TELL ME I CAN’T.”
Mr 10pm Bedtime
This song is about a neighbour I had living below me in the first flat I rented away from home. I had a few parties that were a bit loud, and he made my life a misery, sending angry letters, trying to get me evicted by complaining to the landlord constantly, saying I was disturbing his (10pm) bedtime. I hated him. But one day I had this thought; doesn’t he remember what it was like to be young? To make noise? To make mistakes? I wrote this song feeling kinda sorry for him more than anything else because he grew old and grouchy and I was having fun.
Neck Contour
This song came from a list I made of all the things I wanted to change about myself, written at a time of major self-doubt and self-hate. I was feeling super vulnerable and low and wrote this song in a very painful mood. I think I was dating someone who didn’t make me feel very special and I was struggling with loving my body and my skills, comparing myself to every other girl. The chorus was the reality of what I’d be saying to everyone else when they asked me if I was okay, saying “I’m fine”, “I’m not checking what time he was online”, when actually I wasn’t fine, and I was super upset at not being replied to by the person I fancied. Sometimes you bottle up feelings instead of talking to people around you about them, and this is all the bottled up feelings in a song.
Can I Say Baby?
I’d started dating a guy who was very off and on about his feelings for me, making me think we were going out and then getting with some other girl and being a dick, and this song was about not knowing if I could call him baby or if that would weird him out. It’s about that stage in a relationship where you’re like, “Are we going out? Is he my…. boyfriend?” There are weird lyrics in the song because it was a weird relationship; I really liked him and just wanted to be with him but he was playing me around a lot, and so I ended up playing him around too, snogging other people and pretending I didn’t like him when I did. The song also picks up on how our relationship was just a big game of chess, playing each other off against the other.
Taken from the October issue of Dork, out now. Girli’s EP ‘Hot Mess’ is out 10th October.