Wed 2025-08-06

Super addicted to this, watched it a bunch of times today (I think the music video adds a lot to the song)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw72CQYfHvY
Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party
Setting a 5 minute timer to quickly write about this

Hypnotic

I love how repetitive it is. There’s a hypnotic quality that I find really compelling. The way on the chorus she sounds pretty much exactly the same 4 times, it feels like a chant to reassure herself,

Can only go up from here
Can only go up from here
Can only go up from here
Can only go up, can only go up

And then she repeats again but with this kind of unsettling new tone where she slides between the notes, I love it

But also, the verses are repetitive and hypnotic too

I’ll be the biggest star
At this racist country singer’s bar
No use shooting for the moon
No use chasing waterfalls

I’m the biggest star
At this racist country singer’s bar
No use shooting for the moon
No use chasing waterfalls

Like, it’s “repetitive, hypnotic verse x2, then repetitive, hypnotic verse x2”

Kinda reminds me of the final song on Fiona Apple’s “Fetch The Bolt Cutters” where she repeats:

Fiona:

On I go, not toward or away
Up until now it was day, next day
Up until now in a rush to prove
But now I only move to move

Many times, very “reassuring myself”, meditative vibes

I think she’s really “high conviction” in the music video in a way that’s super compelling. Like, no self awareness, total aura, total confidence
Ughhhh, I got nerd-sniped trying to add gifs here, tried making them and they were way too big
Anyway, there’s a scene where she’s with someone who is clearly aware that he’s on camera and he’s trying to do a cool weird dance like her but is clearly very much in “am I doing it right” mode and this self-conscious like “looking out the corner of my eye at her, and also wearing this big smile that’s a little forced to look like I’m comfortable and having fun”, vs she’s just totally in it and total conviction no eye movements just totally locked in
👇 this bit
Fuck it here’s the voice note I sent to my friends I need to get ready for bed
Is “full conviction mode” the same as Max aura mode?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzUHNjKMeV4
I love this btw - never listened to them before, CPR (song 1) is great but song 2 (Mangetout) is so good → the band sound so tight, the group vocals ruleeee

Ok postmodern is almost certainly not the correct thing
I want to point at the fact that - I really like how the song feels kind of like a puzzle, where you need the title to fully understand it
- (Maybe this happens all the time, it just feels salient with this song - I’m still weirdly obsessed with it right now)
“Ego death at a bachelorette party” connects the dots for you. And it’s a great title, and still leaves unanswered questions
- Did this actually happen to her? Is this a hypothetical? Is it an extrapolation of a real event in her life?

I’ll be the biggest star
At this racist country singer’s bar
No use shooting for the moon
No use chasing waterfalls

It’s written from a part (Writing from the POV of “parts”) which is pure ego, and one I’m very familiar with - “everyone is looking at me, everyone is impressed by me, I’m the biggest star here”
Total clash with the title! But then!

Can only go up from here
Can only go up from here
Can only go up from here
Can only go up, can only go up

I love this because we’re not told what happened
Suddenly, there’s a complete reversal. From complete narcissistic egoic bliss, to absolute rock bottom. It’s jarring

There’s a narrative device that DFW uses where things happen off screen, and it’s up to you to infer, or invent, what happened
She doesn’t tell us what happened, there’s some unnamed bridge from verse to chorus, some calamitous event
- And of course, maybe the title of the song is that bridge
Similar to the end of Infinite Jest, which actually happens after the events of the final page, you have to kind of project out and connect the dots yourself

This grainy lofi camera footage
Being high conviction (high ego?) on the streets of (somewhere in the US, idk where)
Like, full main character mode, causing mischief on the streets
There’s kind of two characters too? We see her as herself, and also as with much more makeup on, doing this kind of robotic thing with her face. Could this be ego death her? Because she’s much more energetic and confident and normal when she has the normal makeup, and then she’s glazed and glassy eyed and dissociated when she has more makeup on, maybe? (I’ve watched it like 10x times now, lol)