let me repeat that: i want my STUFF BACK

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

This is the second best single of the year, after Umbrella-ella-ella-ay-ay-ay.

Watch on YouTube

The tune is killer, the vocoder touches neat, Aly & AJ deliver their lines with pizzazz, but what I love best are the lyrics: it's really well-crafted as a narrative, each line revealing an extra aspect to the situation; and it's concise, like Aly & AJ are tying a knot. It's an ultimatum which leaves the guy they're addressing in no doubt that they mean what they say and that they're not going to take any bullshit any more, but also leaves room for what they secretly hope he'll say in response with the neat twist at the end. Which will it be?


It took too long
It took too long
It took too long for you to call back
And normally I would just forget that
Except for the fact it was my birthday
My stupid birthday

I played along
I played along
I played along, it rolled right off my back
But obviously my armor was cracked
What kind of boyfriend would forget that?
Who would forget that?

The type of guy who doesn’t see
What he has until she leaves
Don’t let me go
Cuz without me, you know you’re lost
Wise up now or pay the cost
Soon you will know

You’re not livin’ till you’re livin’
Livin’ with me
You’re not winnin’ till you’re winnin’
Winnin’ me
You’re not gettin’ till you’re gettin’
Gettin’ to me
You’re not livin’ till you’re livin’
Livin’ for me

This is the potential breakup song
Our album needs just one
Oh baby please
Please tell me

We got along
We got along
We got along until you did that
Now all I want is just my stuff back
Do you get that?
Let me repeat that:
I want my stuff back

You can send it in a box
I don’t care, just drop it off
I won’t be home
Cuz without me, you know you’re lost
Minus you I’m better off
Soon you will know

You’re not livin’ till you’re livin’
Livin’ with me
You’re not winnin’ till you’re winnin’
Winnin’ me
You’re not gettin’ till you’re gettin’
Gettin’ to me
You’re not livin’ till you’re livin’
Livin’ for me

You can try, you can try
You know I know it’d be a lie
Without me you’re gonna cry
So you better think clearly, clearly
Before you nearly, nearly
Mess up the situation that you're gonna miss dearly, dearly
C’mon

You’re not livin’ till you’re livin’
Livin’ with me
You’re not winnin’ till you’re winnin’
Winnin’ me
You’re not gettin’ till you’re gettin’
Gettin’ to me
You’re not livin’ till you’re livin’
Livin’ for me

This is the potential breakup song
Our album needs just one
Oh baby please
Please tell me

This is the potential make up song
Please just admit you’re wrong
Which will it be?
Which will it be?

Comments

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

They're like the fundamentalist Christian face of goth, innit? Goths who you are allowed to like even if you are not allowed to have sex before marriage. Maybe that's it- sexless goths. When they're not being a bit pseudo-incestuous-lesbian, anyway. :/

This song took ages to grow on me but I now like it a lot. Is it being released in the UK?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I hope so! The Aly & AJ UK marketing strategy = low-key release of their first album a couple of weeks ago, then full release of their new one (which this is off) in October (coinciding with its US release). When I first spoke to their PR the other week I mentioned how AMAZING 'The Potential Breakup Song' was and he was like "WTF no one is supposed to know that song even exists", but when I spoke to him a few days ago he said that the feedback has been so positive that they're lobbying the label really hard for it to be the big single in August or thereabouts.

The impression I get from this song is that Aly & AJ thought, well, we sell thousands upon thousands of records, but we're still niche and no one knows who we are unless they have a 10-year-old daughter. Let's take over the world. (ie they're less gothy and you wouldn't be able to tell they were Xtians at all.)

[koganbot]

Lex, according to Amazon, the album Insomniatic gets its U.S. release on July 10.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

PRs lying to me shockah.

[koganbot]

I don't hear goth at all (though maybe I'm dumb and there are some obvious visual cues; I'm a visual retard). Even Hilary - the eeriness of "Fly," for instance - has more goth touches (and then OMG there's Kelly). I would call this new wave, which is to say power pop with synths, and their previous stuff reminds me of pop-derived punk like the Ramones (though with way better rhythm than the Ramones, and not [yet] veering towards the Ramones comic-book nihilism).

Also, I don't hear or see sexlessness at all. (Anyway, chastity and sexlessness are not similar concepts. "Chemicals React" is about visceral attraction after all. And I wouldn't jump to conclusions about their views on premarital sex, either, unless they tell us.)

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I meant abstinent goths, really; there's flirting there but it's all clean.

I think they're very gothy- not as gothy as, say, Ashlee or as you say Kelly but there is definitely something about them. Maybe as you say it's that sort of punk- I hear gothy sweeps in the synths and extended guitar, erm, wangs or whatever you call that noise where it goes on for ages on one strum but the voices are, listening to them now, much more punk than goth; slightly snotty and they shout which is against the rules of ladies in goth.

[koganbot]

Maybe what you're hearing as goth I'm hearing as folk-rock! I.e., drones, which can go either gothy or folky. The verse of "Rush" reminds me so much of Richard Thompson/Fairport Convention.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Ahh, that might well be it. I always associate folk with goth anyway, on the basis there's nothing more sinister than Morris dancing, a lot of which goes on at the glorified beer tent folk festival in Wallingford, a town I have to pass through on the way to work.

I do think folk carries a lot of the romanticism of goth, anyway, they just take it in slightly different directions. The goths tend to metaphorise (is that a word?) about the folk singers and visa versa.