This is a continuation of my blog post about the phenomenal new rock band, Wet Leg. Check out Wet Leg Mania: She Loathes You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah
Last time,
I analyzed their song Wet Dream. Today I take up four more: Ur Mom,
Supermarket, Being in Love, Piece of Shit.
Like Wet
Dream, all these songs seem to be about Mike. If you remember, Mike was
what we decided to call the mysterious no-hoper ex-boyfriend of Rhian to whom
many of the Wet Leg songs seem to be addressed. Rhian has never actually named
him in public, to my knowledge. Possibly out of decency, but more likely to
avoid a libel suit.
By the way,
before I start the song analysis, I just had this curious thought: Mike must be
the most loathsome boyfriend in the annals of rock. That actually makes me
happy. I have had a wife, an ex-wife, and four ex-girlfriends describe to me in
great detail my various shortcomings as a lover. It is a relief to know that
there is someone out there who is probably worse than I am.
I also had
this other thought: If I am right and Wet Leg prove to be the 21st century’s
answer to The Beatles, which was the thesis I put forward in the previous blog post,
Mike would be the 21st century's male equivalent of Pattie Boyd.
Pattie Boyd, wife of George Harrison and Eric Clapton and lover to Ronnie Wood
of The Rolling Stones, inspired an estimated twelve songs from these three
artists, of which three are called the greatest love songs of the 20th
century: Something, Layla and Wonderful Tonight. She is thought to be
the foremost muse in music.
Of course,
in Mike’s case he would be the muse for the greatest hate songs of the 21st
century, but there you have it: that’s how it goes with us men. We’re used to
it.
There is
the minor possibility, although I kind of doubt it, that the Wet Leg songs are
about a whole series of loathsome boyfriends.
This raises three possibilities:
- Rhian is one picky gal.
- The boys on the Isle of Wight seriously need to pull their socks up and get on with it.
- Rhian is not your go-to person for boyfriend selection.
OK, now on with the analysis…
Ur Mom Song Analysis
This song is directly addressed to Mike, basically telling him what a good-for-nothing damp noodle he is. It eviscerates him. Starting right from the first verse, with a nice rhyme of ‘become’ and ‘mum’:
When I think about what you've become
I feel sorry for your mum
Ouch. That
hurts. Not sorry for you, but for your mum, which makes it all the more
cutting. I feel sorry for Mike. If it weren’t for the fact that the music is so
good, and there are so many outstanding lines, this song might have been too
painful for most guys to listen to. One tends to empathize. I have had similar
things told to me by the then love interest at various points in time. Only
without the music and the rhyming couplets.
And the
knife keeps turning in the wound…
And when the radio plays and the static stays,
Yeah, I know it's time to go.
Nice. A
clever line. I would have nodded appreciatively despite myself, had a former
girlfriend told that to me.
And then
some rather simple lines…
I get up, to go now
I give up, on you now
But this is
where the music begins to get interesting. There is a sudden change in tempo,
and a nice little riff from Hester that adds a punch. In live shows, Rhian
makes some rather dramatic hand gestures at this point which would look corny
on any other performer, but she can carry off anything. It adds a sense of
drama to the song. The second time Rhian goes ‘I give up-up-up-up-up’. Again,
this would be plain corny on any other performer, but Rhian makes it funny and cute.
Yeah, I loved you, that was crazy
'Cause you just don't motivate me
And then a
couple of rather ordinary lines, but the rhythm section breaks out into a
rocking groove at this point, making it the one solid base of a song that
shifts constantly. The use of the word ‘motivate’ is rather innovative though. Using
a bland bit of corporate speak here rather than a more colorful word has the unexpected
effect of making the line more dismissive and cutting.
At one
point, there is just the groove going on with Rhian and Hester going Pom-Pom-Pom…
Pom-Pom-Pom, with a kind of hollow, distant echo in the background. It sound
like a gay marching tune fading into the distance. A mental picture is created
of Rhian walking away from poor, broken-down Mike with swaying hips and a skip
in her steps, relieved to have finally broken away from the no-good chump. But
has she? Would she have written ten songs about Mike if she had?
And when you're getting blazed, spooning
mayonnaise
Yeah, I know it's time to go
Then the
enigmatic line. Was Mike in the habit of eating mayonnaise right out of the
bottle (ugh!) with a big spoon? The song video (see below) seems to suggest it.
That alone would have justified Rhian leaving him. Or is it a reference to that
bit of urban slang ‘Mayonnaise spooning’? Check it out in the online urban slang
dictionary if you don’t know what it means. Knowing the pleasure Rhian and
Hester take in hiding dirty double-entendres within their songs, I
suspect the latter.
And then,
of course, the big line of the song…
You're always so full of it
Yeah, why don't you just suck my dick?
A male
punk-rocker singing that would merely sound nasty, but on a girl it’s simply
hilarious, especially the way Rhian spits it out in live concerts with swagger
and elan. Of late, in some concerts, they have started changing it to ‘why
don’t you just suck my clit’, but that just isn’t as funny. @Rhian: go back to
dick, please.
Then there
is the primal scream therapy. Rhian just stops the song midway and invites the
audience to scream as loudly as possible, which they invariably do. Not unless
they are doing a concert in Germany. The Teutons simply look down their noses
suspiciously and mutter ‘Was ist denn das?’ Take a look at the video of their Rockpalast concert
in Köln, if you don’t believe me.
Most
commentators call this the fun element of Wet Leg. They do it because they can,
and they know they will get away with it. Possibly there is an element of
cheekiness here, but to me it fits in perfectly with the song, like the
pom-pom-pom march. It is as if she is doing a primal scream to get that
noodle-head out of her hair. But has it worked? After several hundred primal
screams distributed over several hundred concerts over a year and a half, I
have my doubts. We will have to see if Mike still features in the second Wet
Leg album.
And then
BOOM. Right after the scream, they dive right back into the heavy Pom-pom-pom
groove as if had never gone away, until the music stops abruptly again, and the
song ends for good this time.
Quiz: what
is the Ur Mom tune? Please hum it.
Can’t? Give
up?
That is
because there isn’t one. To be precise, there isn’t ONE. There are SEVERAL.
That is the essence of the Wet Leg style. Where most bands are happy to
discover one good tune, one good groove, or one good hook, and flog it to death
in a song, Wet Leg pile on tunes and hooks and grooves into a song with gay
abandon, as if daddy has a groove mine in the backyard. Where most pop songs
follow the ABAB or AABBAA verse-chorus song structure, Wet Leg have this unusual
ABCD-ABCD-A/D song structure. Each verse has its own tune, its own grove, its
own tempo and one or more hooks. It shouldn’t work, but it does. It creates a
swaying, constantly moving, shape shifting effect, where you can’t pin them
down on anything. No sooner than the audience adjusts to one groove, they move
on to another. That is why you don’t find audiences dancing at Wet Leg
concerts. They do these curious ape-like lurches. That is the only way to dance
to Wet Leg songs.
As a
one-time songwriter, I find this unbelievable. It is so difficult to find one
good tune or one good groove, that most songwriters guard them jealously and
use them judiciously. I can only put it down to the fact that they are so young
and are so bursting with creative ideas that they can afford to splurge. I am
curious to know if they can carry on like this into their second and third
albums.
As for
hooks, that is easier to understand. Rhian has this remarkable ability to pull
hooks out of thin air, simply by the way she modulates her voice. In a way, for
her, hooks come cheap. Recall the pom-pom-pom or the up-up-up-up and the
countless other vocal artifacts in this song and others. Any one of them is
good enough to latch the song into the listener’s head, which is what hooks are
all about.
Here is the
official video of the song. It is a nice little mini movie with a story and
everything. Unlike the other videos, this one appears to have been made by an
external production house. But you can see the Wet Leg humor on full display,
so they clearly had a lot to do with it. Mike is represented here as a lost,
Harry Potterish figure, more to be pitied than censured. You can see Mike
spooning mayonnaise somewhere in the middle of the video at 2:50.
Supermarket Song Analysis
With Supermarket we are back to the comic short story format of most Wet Leg songs. Where Ur Mom did not have much of a story, being one long painful tongue lashing delivered by Rhian to Mike, here we have a proper Mike story. It can also be seen as a commentary on our love-hate relationship with supermarkets and on the consumerist culture in general.
Rhian
apparently got the idea for this song after the COVID lockdown, when the simple
act of being able to visit your local supermarket became thrilling. This song
is based is based on the whimsical premise that Rhian takes Mike along to the
supermarket and they become so giddy at the experience that they actually
get high. So high, in fact, that they get thrown out of the supermarket by
the security.
In this
high state, Rhian is wondering dreamily what to do, and she decides to take
Mike to see her parents.
I want to take you back to meet my parents
I wanna tell them 'bout that job that you do
And I think you'll like it when you meet my
parents
And I think there is a good chance of them
liking you
Seemingly
ordinary lines, but nice rhymes and a neat structure. What makes these lines
funny is that they are clearly meant in irony. This is obvious from the gently
mocking tone in which Rhian sings this verse. It is clear that Mike doesn’t
have much of a job, and Rhian’s parents are probably not going to be thrilled
to see him. Add to that the fact that they are both out of their minds on a supermarket high, one
can only guess the upshot.
As I said,
a nice bit of humorous slice-of-life storytelling which leaves a lot to the
imagination. Sadly, no music video for this song. It would have made for a very
funny video with the usual Wet Leg touches.
Being in Love Song
Analysis
This is the best-sounding version of Being in Love on YouTube, but it is a bowdlerized version: Rhian bleeps over all the rude words as this show was for a US radio show. The below version sounds a bit muddy, but it has all the rude words intact.
This has to be the most original love song ever in the annals of pop. It doesn’t talk about loving someone, or feeling blue after a break up or any of that crap. Rather, it is a cynical look at the *process* of falling in love…
I feel like someone has
Punched me in the guts
But I kinda like it
'Cause it feels like being in love
The closest
song I can think of is the 1991 Eurhythmics song Love is a Stranger,
that was about the dangers of loving someone obsessively. But that was a rather
dark and over-the-top song, nothing like this one.
As someone
who had once fallen in love, got dumped, spent years in a black funk, and then
woken up one day, several years later, wondering bemusedly what the whole fuss
had been about, this song speaks to me. But I came to this enlightened state
rather late in life. I’m rather surprised Rhian has arrived here at such a
young age. On the other hand, millennials seem to live life in fast forward,
unlike us innocent boomers. And I had been rather slow in matters of the heart
compared even to my peers.
Another
nice verse in the song…
I tried to meditate
But I just medicate
Pour me another drink
Don't wanna have to think
The best
part of the song for me is where Rhian yodels ‘being in luh-uh-uh-uh-ove,
luh-uh-uh-uh-ove’ in a sarcastic tone, making clear what she thinks of love.
This song
isn’t strictly about Mike, but one presumes Rhian got to this enlightened state
as a corollary to her break up with Mike, so I have bunched it with the Mike
songs.
Piece of Shit Song
Analysis
This version of Piece of Shit is convenient in that it shows all the lyrics. The below one is a better performance, though:
It uses a
lot of strong language, but it sounds perfectly natural in the context. This is
how people converse in private, when deeply moved. It isn’t like a punk group
using foul language to shock.
I’ll leave
you to discover the song for yourself, without blathering on about it. But I
would like point out a couple of highlights. The first one…
You're like a piece of shit, you either sink or
float
So you take her for a ride on your daddy's boat
And you are not in love, but it's close enough
You say you think about me when you're fucking
her.
I love the
rhyming and the mental association of shit sinking or floating with daddy’s boat.
And the following verse is precise and cuts like a knife.
The second
highlight of the song is of course the ‘sting in the tail’:
Yeah, technically, I know that I agreed
But it was unenthusiastically
The whole
song is turned upside down in the last verse. It seems they had an agreement to
some kind of an open relationship, but she is now regretting it, although she
defends herself weakly by saying she had just gone along with it under
pressure. It puts a different angle on the whole grouse that precedes it.
I swear,
this is probably the only pop song ever that has words like ‘technically’ and
‘unenthusiastically’ in it. Even if there are others, I doubt these words have
been used to more devastating effect.
I like to categorize
this as a Mike song, as it neatly rounds off the Mike song cycle. In all the
other songs, Rhian punches and pummels Mike, and lays out his inner hideousness
for the world to see. But it is not at all clear what it is exactly that Mike
is supposed to have done to incur Rhian’s wrath. This song seems to provide the
reason.
On the
other hand, in all the other songs, the picture created of Mike is that of a
wishy-washy, no-good lay about. In this song, we are presented with a smooth-taking,
two-timing twister. The two don’t jell. So there is the possibility that this song is about some
other seedy boyfriend of Rhian’s. Or it might be a work of pure fiction. Only
Rhian can tell.
I haven’t
mentioned humor so far. This isn’t as obviously funny as the other songs when you listen to it. It sounds like a long, furious rant. But the humor is obvious when you read the lyrics (see the link above). This is one of those rare songs where the lyrics can be enjoyed independently of the music. It reads like the screenplay for Elaine's thread in a typical episode of Seinfeld. You can visualize the scenes that lead up to this, and the song itself passes for Elain's lines in the final confrontation scene between Elain and her horrible boyfriend-for-that-episode.
Part III:
The Wet Party
(Featuring My favorite Wet Leg song, Angelica)
