Girl in Red’s ‘Midnight Love’ Is a Dreamy Ode to F–k Buddies
No one is likely answering any booty calls these days, but when everything gets back to normal and hearts commence crushing, Girl in Red has the track for you: “Midnight Love.” The song, out Tuesday, is a contender for the classiest ode to fuck buddies ever written.
“I know I don’t want to/be the one that you run to/when you got nowhere else to go,” Marie Ulven sings in a hushed, husky voice over finger-plucked strings and sparse guitar. Double-tracked vocals crescendo into the chorus: “I can’t be your midnight love/When your silver is my gold.” The romantic tone of the lyrics is somehow childlike — it sounds like an idealized relationship, even if it is just physical. It also has a touch of the world-weary: “I know I’m the last one/you try to call/but I always give in/to give you it all.”
Girl in Red straddles the line between Billie Eilish’s ferocious malaise and Lorde’s smooth, strange sophisti-pop. As such, “Midnight Love” is the ideal song for marinating in your romantic failures while also rallying: “I’m not your consolation prize,” as Ulven sings.
Still, it’s not as if she learns her lesson by the song’s end. She reaches her peak, wailing, “In this light/I swear I’m blind/In this light/I swear you’re mine,” before adding the echo-soaked intonation: “I can’t be your second-best/close but not your favorite/I keep going back for more/when there’s nothing from before.” The song then peters out, a problem left unsolved.
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