Chvrches – “He Said She Said”

Chvrches – “He Said She Said”

Chvrches have shared a new song called “He Said She Said.” The Scottish band’s most recent full-length was 2018’s Love Is Dead. Since then, they’ve teamed up with Marshmello and released a song for the video game Death Stranding. For the last few days, they’ve been teasing new music with video diaries posted to their social media accounts.

“He Said She Said” was recorded remotely while in lockdown, with Lauren Mayberry and Martin Doherty isolating in Los Angeles and Iain Cook in Glasgow. It’s the first single off their upcoming fourth studio album, which a few months ago Mayberry said was influenced by Billie Eilish.

Here’s Mayberry’s statement on the track:

Like everyone, I’ve had a lot of time to think and reflect over the past year; to examine experiences I had previously glossed over or deeply buried. I feel like I have spent a lot of my life (personally and professionally) performing the uncomfortable balancing act that is expected of women and it gets more confusing and exhausting the older I get.

Be successful but only in the way we want you to be. Speak up for yourself but not so loudly that you steal men’s thunder. Be attractive but only for the benefit of men, and certainly don’t be vain. Strive to be The Hot Sad Girl but don’t actually be sad in a way that’s inconvenient for anyone. Be smart but not smart enough to ask for more than what you’re being given.

‘He Said She Said’ is my way of reckoning with things I’ve accepted that I know I shouldn’t have. Things I pretended weren’t damaging to me. It was the first song we wrote when we started back up, and the opening line (“He said, You bore me to death”) was the first lyric that came out. All the verse lines are tongue-in-cheek or paraphrased versions of things that have actually been said to me by men in my life. Being a woman is fucking exhausting and it felt better to scream it into a pop song than scream it into the void. After the past year, I think we can all relate to feeling like we’re losing our minds.

Listen below.

UPDATE: The song now has a music video as well.

“He Said She Said” is out now via Glassnote.

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