“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.”
It’s rare that we begin a Vanyaland article with a quote, but that one from CHVRCHES‘ Lauren Mayberry strikes quite an emotion as the Scottish electronic pop trio today (April 19) release a majestic new track titled “He Said She Said.” The fresh tune arrives nearly three years since CHVRCHES released their 2018 third album Love Is Dead, and it’s a towering and anthemic three-minute blast that brings the group right back into our playlists without missing a beat.
And it’s another round of assertion and empowerment from Mayberry.
“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,” says Mayberry says. “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.”
Mayberry adds: “‘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.”
Fire up “He Said She Said” below.