About this song
- By writing from the perspective of a man taking advantage of a woman, rather than a woman being taken advantage of, YUNGBLUD brings attention to the creepiness and unacceptable nature of “lad culture.” Although the song ties into the #MeToo movement that has gained traction in recent years, YUNGBLUD has mentioned that he recalls seeing these sorts of behaviors when he was as young as 14. YUNGBLUD has stated several times that this song has a lot of meaning to him, and has stated in a video that he believes this song “should remain on the forefront of our minds and needs to be talked about to make the issue obsolete." "I think, initially, this problem has become far too normal. It was something I experienced seeing growing up. I used to go out in the north at 14 with a fake ID, and see these drunk girls stumbling out of nightclubs with boys that weren’t nearly as drunk as they were. And, do you know the mental, fundamentally, crazy messed up thing? It was that I didn’t realise that it was wrong until I’d grown up, until I moved down to London and saw the world from a real perspective. We’re brought up in a society where this lad mentality is so vastly accepted that it’s normalised. And for me, I just think that’s disgusting, and I believe that it’s not just black or white. I want to write this song because I want boys to listen to it, watch the video and go “oh my god, just because a girl wants to wear a short skirt as possible or get as drunk as she wants, that does not give me the right to take advantage of that fact” or “oh my god, I’ve done that.” The more we talk about it, the more the awareness is raised, and people who wouldn’t believe it’s wrong can learn and see that it’s wrong and it’s so important that this issue can be talked about, and that it can be stamped out." - via PileRats "When I was releasing this song, I was nervous as shit because, obviously sonically, it’s a different approach. But as an artist, I never want to be genre-defined. I love Kanye West as much as I love The Clash. I love Lorde as much as I love the Arctic Monkeys. So why can I not take a string section and write a song that’s so beautiful that has an underlying message? I wanted to trick people. Initially, I wanted it to be so catchy, so beautiful, so cinematic, that you’re singing it and you don’t even know what it means until the third time you listen to it. And it’s that embedded in your mind, it forces you to think and talk about it. I just think right now, everything is coming from the women. I think it’s so important for boys to talk about it, because boys need to realize, ‘Oh my God, I’ve done that,’ because it’s still clouded. People do not realize that they are doing the wrong thing. Some people go, ‘Oh, whatever’ and push boundaries and push boundaries, and just wake up the next morning, and the girl is mortified next to him and it doesn’t even resonate to them. In the video, he’s just kind of like, ‘You want a cup of tea?’ And it’s like, what? That’s why it needs to be spoken about from a male perspective, to dilute and smash the shit of this lad mentality that’s been so vastly accepted." - via BAZAAR.com . User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply. — lastfm
