Dissect - S10E10 - I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE by Tyler, The Creator

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

Our season-long analysis of IGOR continues with I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE, a musical respite after the emotional gauntlet of the album's previous track GONE GONE / THANK YOU. As the IGOR's penultimate track, it buttons up many of the albums motifs while setting the stage for its grand finale: ARE WE STILL FRIENDS? Shop Season 10 merchandise here. Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. Host, EP, Writer: Cole Cuchna Writer: Camden Ostrander Audio Editor: Kevin Pooler Theme Music: Birocratic Recreations: Andrew Atwood Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone. Before we get into today's episode, I want to let you know that you have an opportunity to be featured in the upcoming season 10 finale episode in just a few weeks. It's here that we'll be playing an audio montage of Dysect listeners sharing their thoughts and feelings about Igor. Instructions on how to submit your clip are now posted on our Instagram page at Dysk Podcast. The deadline for submissions is coming up quick, so if you're interested, head to At Dysk Podcast on Instagram today. Also, while I'm here, I should quickly mention that we still have limited season 10 merchandise available for purchase on dissectpodcast.com. They came out great and are really high quality garments, so definitely pick one up before they

sell out. All right, that's it. Here's today's episode. From Spotify, this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis, broken into short, digestible episodes. This is episode 10 of our season-long examination of Tyler the creator's Igor. I'm your host, Cole Kushna. Last time I dissect, we examined Igor's 10th song Gone Gone Thank You. It was there Tyler indulged in his memories of the time spent with his crush before saying farewell, both to the crush and Tyler's love for him. In the song's second half, Tyler reached a place of gratitude, able to let go of the bitterness of rejection and thank his crush for his time. But the sting of loss also found Tyler expressing hesitancy to ever give love another chance. The emotional gauntlet of Gone Gone Thank You is then

followed by a respite of swords, as Igor begins to wind down towards its conclusion with its next track, the subject of our episode today, I don't love you anymore. I don't love you anymore was produced by Tyler Acoma, with additional vocals by Solange, Charlie Wilson, and Jesse Wilson. In terms of production, the song is pretty minimalistic, although like most songs by Tyler these days, even his simplest arrangements contain some beautiful surprises and details. The track begins with a simple drum loop over which Tyler plays an undulating four-core progression. This bare musical landscape allows for Tyler's vocals to shine from the start, and he begins the opening verse with hesitance, vulnerably, prefacing with a trepid, see, um, before stage,

heavy feelings for you, yeah, yeah, it's no secret. While a simple statement, the inclusion of the words no secret feels pointed and purposeful. Recall the entire first half of Igor was plagued with secrets. For Tyler, his secret was his true feelings for the guy, as he feared abandonment, scared the guy would leave if Tyler came off too strongly. For the guy, his secret has been his sexuality, fearing as he does the judgment of others and himself. This secrecy was most overtly stated in Running Out of Time, where Tyler plainly stated secrets repeatedly. With Running Out of Time being the fourth song on Igor, and I Don't Love You anymore being it second to last, going from secrets to now no secrets, is yet another

motivic reversal that succinctly captures narrative progression. At the story's start, secrecy was a central conflict, and by the story's end, there are no more secrets. Tyler finally expressed himself, and as a result, his worst fear has been realized. The guy abandoned him. or they abandoned each other. And now we're witnessing our protagonists struggle through the aftermath of that reality, wondering how he'll move forward. Fittingly, this is much of what I Don't Love You Anymore is about. As Tyler continues,

You too cool for me, and I ain't trying to freeze up like the Johnsons, nonsense. Here Tyler plays off the Johnson's brand air conditioning fluid for cars called Freeze. Just like the Secrets Line, the car reference here is another development of an album-long motif, as Tyler has used the shared journey of a car ride as a symbol for sharing your life's journey with a partner. With Tyler and the guy's ride coming to its end,

Tyler appropriately uses the car motif to express a disconnect, with a guy being too cool for Tyler, and Tyler not wanting to freeze up, not wanting his car or life to stall or become hung up on this failed relationship. It would seem that something that Tyler fears more than abandonment is a lack of progression, as he's actually used this freezing analogy on multiple occasions, both in interviews and in songs.

This line from where this flower blooms finds Tyler battling his own ego that threatens to freeze him in a moment in time, specifically a moment where he found success when he was considered cool. He wasn't too cool to care. You can be too cool because if you're too cool, you're going to freeze today. Niggas is trying to be too cool and not be silly and always try to be hard. And it's like, bro, you look dumb. We can hear Tyler's passion and fearlessness and his constant encouragement for change as a for the dangers of stasis. And we can see how this mentality of progression over conservation

can easily translate to the end of a relationship. Where Tyler could easily get stuck chasing the past happiness the experience with this guy, Tyler instead chooses to progress forward, realizing, quote, there's more fish in the sea, I'm a re-up. Using the cliche of more fish in the sea to mean there's more people available for a romantic connection, Tyler here seems open to giving love another chance, a direct contrast with the previous statement of, I don't ever want to fall in love again just heard on thank you. It would seem that with a little bit of time, Tyler is getting over his fear of another heartbreak, regaining his emotional strength to a level where the inherent risks of love feel worthwhile. We also find another callback to Flower Boy with this line,

this time to its 10th track, 9-1-1, Mr. Lonely. Tyler here describes his perpetual loneliness and lack of long-term relationships by rapping, there's more fish in the sea, but I never had a goldfish to begin with. On I don't love you anymore, after having found love perhaps for the first time, the cliche becomes a reminder of possibility, a reminder not to get stuck on this one person when there's so many other opportunities for connection out there. In a way, it ties back to the freezing metaphor, with the image of frozen water being symbolic of the inability to swim,

to explore the waters and create those new opportunities. Tyler continues the opening verse saying, Like bitch, I know my shit is bumping, it's eczema. In reference to music, bumping is a positive description. While when referring to skin, bumpy is a negative, like the rashes and red bumps from eczema. Tyler's taking pride in his imperfections, and what is natural, a true sign of confidence.

And whereas someone with eczema might try to hide their face, Tyler retorts, so I won't walk around with my head down like I got beat up. Even though the relationship has ended, that he lost the fight in this sense, Tyler won't let it affect him like getting beat up. He has no shame in the fact that he loved, that he loved openly, and that he really tried to make this romance work. In a culture where effort is often seen as uncool, Tyler's proclamation to authentically wear his scars and imperfections as badges of honor

is incredibly powerful, symbolic as they are of someone who cares, someone who really tries despite knowing failure is sometimes inevitable. Indeed, this dynamic is something that often gets in the way of love. We can get so scared about what can happen if it doesn't work out or if the other person rejects us, as if that automatically makes us less than, as if the person who leaves or rejects someone else is inherently superior. Tyler builds on this idea in its conclusive statement saying,

You do you, all do me, I'll just chuck the piece up, I ain't trying to keep up. This seems to echo exactly Tyler's party statement on the previous track, Gone Gone. But I finally found peace. So peace. Beautifully, Tyler reinforces his position of peace in the aftermath of their separation. Being consumed with bitterness and pettiness is one way to become stuck, which Tyler seeks to avoid, preferring instead to keep it cordial. You do you, all do me, reinforces Tyler's push for authenticity,

as he doesn't want to continue to pressure the guy to live a life he's not ready for, getting back at the idea of timing being a critical ingredient in any successful relationship. This leads him to conclude, I ain't trying to keep up. First were reminded of the running motif of the album, where Tyler was in a race against the girl for the guy's heart. In this way, Tyler admitting he's not trying to keep up means he doesn't want any part of the race anymore. But this line also seems to bring the verse full circle and a bit of clever wordplay, recalling the previous Johnson's reference and perhaps evoking the phrase, keep up with the Joneses.

This idiom refers to the comparison to one's neighbor as a benchmark for social class or the accumulation of material goods. To fail to keep up with the Joneses is perceived as being inferior. It would seem Tyler is twisting the phrase to mean he's not attempting to go tit for tat with his former crush in a game of petty comparison. He's not going to pose fake photos of himself living his best life or attempt to make his ex jealous by publicly showing off a new partner. Rather, he's simply going to live his life and continue on his path, hoping his ex does the same. With the introduction of the song's chorus, the dynamic range is increased with a steady synth base, which is slightly distorted, in line with the distorted synth motif we've heard in every song on Igor. Over this Tyler sings the tracks refrain and title,

I don't love you anymore, with each repetition feeling a little more assertive than the last. In between this straightforward statement, we hear beautifully harmonized backing vocals, first ad-libbing repeated woes with an ascending melody that cascades across the musical landscape, and it feels as if we're hearing Tyler's love fly away, dissipating into the ether.

The background interjections eventually progressed to words. saying, you wasted my time and I know that these things are not hard. Tyler seems to be reliving or remembering his frustration as he lets this love go, again bringing up the precious time he spent on this guy. Saying he knows these things are not hard feels like an accurate sentiment when reflecting on a relationship, when distance and time apart gives way to clarity, and it all seems so simple to fix in retrospect, all those if onlys and we should ofs that consume our mind.

At the end of the chorus, Tyler wonders aloud, but this just might be better for us, you know? He's rationalizing and processing the pain of the moment in the spirit of self-improvement. Notably, this line is spoken, not sung. It's as if we're hearing a fragment of a real conversation between the two at the moment of separation. The earnestness of this line is highlighted by its phrasing. It might get better for them, and the inclusion of you know at the end of the sentence makes it a question. Because ultimately, who really knows?

Maybe if they gave it more time, it would have worked out eventually. Maybe there are just a few days or weeks from a massive breakthrough. No one really knows. Most of our decisions are just our best guesses. We can only do what we can with what we have. And Tyler's hope that he made the right decision is so pure, it's crushing, knowing as we do it's anyone's guess, especially his. We'll be back right after the break.

Welcome back to Dissect. Before the break, we heard I Don't Love You Anymore's chorus, which is immediately followed by a post-chorus that features a rolling synth lead with vamping chords behind it. Midway through the post chorus, Tyler performs some hard-pan backing vocals. On one side, he says, because I don't love like I used to,

and on the other side, he says, where did the time go? I need a location. Strategically, Tyler develops both the time and travel motif once again. The lack of location symbolizes this relationship going nowhere, having no clear direction or place of arrival.

In other words, Tyler's been wasting his time driving around in circles with this guy. This is yet another motivic payoff set up all the way back on the album start. Recall that in live performances of Igor's theme, Tyler would sometimes perform a verse that was omitted from the album version. Tyler here wraps, Running from the space, Going Now, Get to the Place.

From the album's start, Tyler was looking for a destination with this guy, a location, a place. Now on its penultimate track, Tyler's no closer to finding this so-called place, and is now now looking back wondering what exactly they'd been doing that whole time, where all that time together had taken them. I don't love you anymore's post-courous, then continues with Tyler saying, Because you don't want to talk about it, baby. That's all I know. Tyler's developing motifs again, this time the album-long communication motif that stunted

this relationship from its start. The crush didn't want to talk or formalize his feelings for Tyler due to the fear of his sexuality and public judgment, and Tyler didn't want to talk because he feared the guy becoming uncomfortable and leaving him. Thus, that's all that I know, seems to be. mean that all Tyler knows as this guy doesn't want to talk about it and nothing more. In other words, he knows nothing. When viewed as a whole, this post-chorus feels like a brief summation of the relationship,

a tightly woven, rapid sequence of most of the album's main motifs. Now, as I Don't Love You Anymore continues, the song modulates into a new key signature, and we abruptly find ourselves in a decadent bridge section Tyler described as sounding like Golden Hour, that gorgeous, fleeting time of day just before sunset, when the light reddens and softens bathing the earth in a beautiful warm glow of golden yellow. Over a pivot chord of E-flat major, Tyler wraps a brief couplet beginning with, but now, moving on, but how. This line reinforces the post-chorus being a summary, reflection, or memory of the relationship, with but now re-centering us in the present moment, where Tyler is trying to figure out where

to go from here to find that next location. Tyler's subsequent line is a bit puzzling, as he draws out a long um and then says the word something, as if he didn't have lyrics planned and was just filling the space with an ad lib. But given that the previous line was questioning how to move on, the incoherence of this ad lib perfectly symbolizes his lack of clarity in the moment, of not knowing what to do next. He has to do something, he's just not sure what. Next, Tyler says, put my feelings in the lost and found, objectifying his emotions as if there are mitten or scarf. It seems like a rhetorical request to his crush, asking him to give back all the love he gave him, as if feelings are something that can simply be returned. It's at

this moment that the song locks into its new key of C major and Tyler repeats a three-core progression of D minor 7, G-dominant 7 and C major 7. This three-core progression is what's called a 251 and it's perhaps the most common and versatile chord sequence in all of music and particularly important in jazz harmony. In fact, some jazz standards are built almost entirely from this three-court sequence, like the standard Autumn Leaves, performed here by Nat King Cole. window the autumn leaves Tyler's 251 progression is executed on the familiar Rhodes keyboard and is accented by a secondary synthesizer providing a choppy percussive layer

this is the repeated section that Tyler described as golden hour which finds a vocal ensemble of Charlie Wilson Jesse Wilson Solange and Tyler himself performing a beautiful swath of harmonies the first words we hear are Tyler saying now I'm stuck forever and ever and ever as he fades off and is overtaken by the vocal ensemble. It reinforces Tyler's confusion at this moment, capturing the often paralyzing feeling of confronting a new beginning. While he claims his love is gone, and has come to terms with the fact that this relationship has no future,

knowing what isn't our future doesn't equate to knowing what is our future, and now Tyler's feeling stuck and scrambling to find some new direction to move in. Thus we hear the harmonized vocal singing, I don't love you no more, tell me where to go, can I have my heart back? These are repetitions of the core ideas, with Can I Have My Heart Back, continuing the objectified symbolism of love, and tell me where to go continuing the travel motif, with Tyler stuck at the crossroads of his life with and without this person.

But this just might be better for us, you know. Conclusions. At just two minutes and 41 seconds, which includes a 25-second wordless outro, I don't love you anymore in its mellow musical landscape feels like a much-needed exhalation after the emotional roller coaster of puppet, what's good and gone gone thank you. It's a song best experience not individually but within the context of the album, as it serves a critical reflective purpose in Igor's overarching emotional

and narrative journey, buttoning up as it does many of the album's recurring motifs and giving us a chance to catch our breasts as we approach its climactic finale. But that's not to say that I Don't Love You anymore doesn't hold its own weight. Despite its brevity, the song captures the very real feelings of confusion and aimlessness in the immediate aftermath of romance. Even though Tyler found peace with the fact that this relationship was ending on Gone Gone Thank you, that doesn't mean he knows what to do next. And in these moments of disjointed feelings, it's often so easy to crumble, to go running back to our ex or immediately run into the arms of another, desperately looking for some place

to put our leftover feelings of passion and love, looking to fill that aching void. Because where do we put our feelings if we don't love that person anymore? Where does all that love go? Is it truly gone? Is love really temporary? Does our love for another ever really end? In this way, Tyler's repetition of I don't love you anymore feels less like a direct address to his former love

and more like a personal mantra, something he repeats to himself and the world for emotional reinforcement in this critical moment of vulnerability. Because knowing what we should do and actually doing what we know we should do is itself a fundamental dilemma inherent to the human experience, inspiring grueling internal wars within ourselves as our head and our heart fight for influence over our actions.

And this kind of internal battle seems to result in Igor's next and final track, because while Tyler's head won't allow him to pursue this guy as a lover anymore, his heart can't stand the thought of him being completely absent from his life. And so Tyler proposes a middle ground, a compromise of sorts. Friends. Of course, this is Igor's final song, Are We Still Friends? A song will dissect note by note, line by line, next time on Discept. Today's episode of Dicect was written by Camden Ostrander and me.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please tell a friend about the show or share on social media and tag at Dysheck Podcast. Limited Season 10 merchandise can still be purchased at Dysectpodcast.com for a limited time. Audio editing by Kevin Pooleer, song recreations by Andrew Atwood, theme music by Bureau of Pratt.