Switched on Pop - The Puzzle of Ariana Grande's "Into You" (with K. Flay)

Episode Date: January 27, 2017

"Into You" was one of the biggest hits of 2016, the stellar production of reclusive legend Max Martin combining with the acrobatic vocals of Ariana Grande to create an undeniable, ubiquitous earworm. With "Into You" still burning up the charts, we dive deep to uncover the insane puzzles, Trompe-l'oiel tricks and Baroque games that lie under the surface of this morsel of pop perfection. PLUS, brilliant rocker and rapper K. Flay joins to discuss the mysteries of Ariana Grande and takes us through the composition of her own, bass-heavy anthem of catharsis, "Blood in the Cut." Featuring • Ariana Grande - Into You  • K Flay - Blood in the Cut • Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive • J.S. Bach - A little hocket example • Ariana Grande - Dangerous Woman • The Chainsmokers - Closer • The Rolling Stones - Can't Get No Satisfaction • The Rolling Stones - Paint It Black Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to Switch on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And joining me in the studio is Kay Flee, songwriter, rapper, singer, producer. Yeah. And we're really lucky to have her with us. She's going to talk with us about today's topic, Ariana Grande. And then later in the second half of the show, we'll be talking about her song, Blood and the Cut.

Hey, guys. Multi-hyphenate, I think. It's the phrase. Multi-hyphenate. I like that. Put that on my tombstone. I was okay. Kay Flai, so happy to have you on board.

I could not be more excited for the subject of today's episode. Today we talk about the trials of one Ariana Grande. I have a lot to say about one song in particular. I'm so excited. That's actually from last year, but it's still all over the radio. I think it's totally worth talking about. And I think you'll come along with me on a voyage of discovery with this particular song and then we'll zoom out to talk about her persona in sort of a larger way.

Oh, I like it. So we're going to, this is kind of wedge shaped. It starts very small. Before we do anything else, though, we have to listen to what I think might be the greatest straight-up pop song on the radio at the moment. Bold. Let's spin into you by Ariana Grande. All right, you made it. We made it through.

We made it. We should have kept going. I know, I defy you to stop that easily. It's so infectious. I immediately took notes of this song because it passed the hardest test in my book for a good pop song, which is the grocery test. Which is if I linger in the produce aisle when it's playing in the grocery store, just kind of holding like some wet romaine lettuce for an uncomfortable amount of time, then it's a really good pop song. And at this point, we need to do one of our reveal. This song is produced by someone we've talked about before on our show.

In some ways, it's the person that all roads in modern popular music lead to. He's like, The Wizard of Oz. This is a Max Martin production. Of course it is. The enigmatic reclusive Swedish genius and his regular team of collaborators. And this song, I thought for a long time as kind of like, an intricate puzzle, like a Rubik's Cube or something. And then my analogy or metaphor shifted, mutated. Now I think of it more almost like a piece of tromploy art.

Wow. Are you familiar with that term? K-Fle, did you take any art history courses? No. What does, how do you spell that? That would be T-R-O-M-P-E. Okay. dash L-A-O-I-E-I-L, I think. So that's another hyphen, first of all. That's kind of the theme.

No, I have no idea what that is, but I would like to know. CIFRALSES. It translates to deceiving the I and refers to a kind of painting that developed, I think, mainly during the Baroque era, where the painting fools you. It tricks you. It shows you something that seems like it's there, but it's not. Like one example would be when you look up at a ceiling and it's painted so that it appears as though you're looking up at the sky. Right.

But you're just looking at, you know, a plaster ceiling that's been so intricately painted with the right shadow and light to actually fool you into thinking that you're suddenly looking up at the sky, but you're not. It's just a painting. So what are we looking into on this song? Yeah. Where are you taking us? I think the song is deceiving our ears constantly. Nothing is quite what it seems and it all interlocks together

in this very intricate and somewhat diabolical way. You have to take us wherever you're at because I'm so lost. Okay, we start with the first sound we hear in the song. Okay. That deep, jagged, super

syncopated bass. Okay, so it's like wwwwwwwwww wow, wow, wow. Yeah, I mean, so first of all, like, what an incredibly funky syncopated baseline. It just dances on all the upbeats, never hitting it down.

But you can tell because we have that bass drum going kind of four to the floor, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, and then all around it is just dancing the rhythm of that baseline. Dig it. And then the baseline sounds kind of complex to me at first. It's moving from these. different chords. It's kind of hard for me to follow. But this is, I think, the first trick that the song is playing on us. How so? Because if we slow it down, just take this baseline one note

at a time. We see that actually what it's doing is very simple, just in terms of pitches. What's going on? We start on the home key, the home note of this song, F sharp, and then the bass line moves up. It goes F sharp G sharp A making its way up the minor scale and then it keeps going up. It goes up to B and Then this is the trick. Okay. It doesn't directly just keep going up the scale. Yeah, and we do but not quite in the way we expect because it doesn't go directly up it drops down to that D rather than go up to that D. It drops down to it Huh. And then we hang on that D for a while, and then we go up. And then right before the bass line repeats, we go up to E, and we get back to the very start of the song F sharp.

So we've come exactly back to where we've started in literally the most probably simple way you could possibly write a baseline. It just walks up the scale. It just walks up the scale one note at a time. With a funny twist where it drops down. With a funny twist where it drops down and doing it in this very rhythmic way where it's kind of hard to follow. Again, I think it's tricking you into seeming more complex than it is, but it's actually just the simplest thing in the world. It's like dough, a deer, a female deer.

Doe a deer, a female deer. Ray, a drop of golden sun. It's just going, I mean, literally, that's all this baseline I do. just going up one note at a time. It's the most simple thing in the world. Doa Deer is pretty catchy. You know what I mean, though? Now that you say it, I'm like, I do know how that goes.

For sure. With the rhythm and with the way it kind of starts and stops and slowly moves up and then drops down and then comes back to the beginning, it's like constantly entertaining and surprising. And again, tricks your ear into thinking it's not the simple stepwise ascension. It sounds like something else.

Okay, trick number one. Okay, trick number one. Now, we're not even going to move very far yet. Okay. We're just... Hang it on trick number one. I'm not even close to done with this baseline. Okay.

How would you describe the timbre, the tone color? Okay, I have a thought on this, because when I heard it this morning, I'm really interested in songs that the instrumentation mirrors the theme of the song. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I feel like, and maybe I'm wrong on the point of this song, but it seems like, you know, she's sort of trying to be coy. Like they're in this situation where like nothing's defined.

Right. They like each other. No one's made a move. And so the baseline, it's like a low pass thing. We don't ever hear like the high end. And then when the chorus hits, we get like the full synthesizer sound. And there's like the high end and it's, you know, grimy. And that's when she's like, do this.

Wow. I was going to say it sounds like a duck, but that's a lot more. I don't know, but I was thinking about it. And that's what I thought this morning when I was listening. I don't know if that vibes with your vibe, Nate. That vibe's so hard with my vibe, actually. Okay, okay, good. And I actually am like a little red face because I meant to talk about the meaning of this song, too,

and you're like, you already beat me to it. Yeah, I totally agree. This song is all about, to me, like, kind of closing the gap, you know, moving from talking to the next stage in a first stage. romantic relationships. Yep. Right? As the chorus,

as the chorus says, a little less conversation and a little more touch my body. Nate, please. I know, I know. I just, I joked up a little,

just saying that line. Well, Kay Flay, you're one to talk when we listen to blood in the cut later. I know. Well, get ready. But yeah,

no, I totally agree. I am going to make the same exact argument as KFlay just presented. Okay. This base. The bass line transforms as the song builds, as this moment of the climactic encounter builds and builds as well. But there's something else that I didn't detect listening to this track until I isolated the baseline.

This bass is like another trick. It's not what it appears to be. Okay. Yeah, I do think the ooh man voice was interesting. Interesting. I had heard that one, but now I'm hearing something else. There's another one. The ooh man voice that I couldn't describe it better.

I think that's like a little clue as to what this baseline actually is, which is not a synthesizer at all. But as we hear the sound transform and it starts to change, it starts to become like kind of breathier. Yeah. Right? It's starting to open up a little bit. Doesn't she say I can't catch my breath at some point in the song, too? She might. Yeah, she does.

Sounds like something she'd say. It's transforming itself in front of our ears. Wow. And then all of a sudden it's revealed what it truly is. Ooh. That is really awesome. That's really nice. Isn't that wild?

So that was this airy, breathy, ah, vocal. Wow. That is a really cool track. I had no idea that was going on. You know what's funny about hearing that? is when I heard this song, like, it kind of made me think about the Bee Gees. Really? Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know if it's the tempo or something about it. But, like, it felt like a disco. I don't know, like, I don't know what tempo is, like, maybe one, or, you know, it's, like, dancey, but still not super fast. And hearing these men's, like, voices makes me think it, like, low-key is a Bejee's track. Like, couldn't you? Right? In fact, the next part I was going to talk about, I think, is a very Bee Gees-esque sort of technique.

All right. Which is the moment towards the end of the song. This is the next trick. So I guess we're on trick number three now. Yeah. This is after the bridge. And we get a very different version of the chorus as we've heard. It's a great song.

It's a great song. I hear this song, I want to hear more of it. So this moment, given what we were just talking about, this moment is really interesting to me because that moment when it comes out of the bridge, you expect it to be this big dynamic moment, and it turns out to be this kind of tighter, quieter moment where all of a sudden, all we hear are voices. We have the voices of the Beegis men in the background, the A Aas. And then we have Ariana Grande, singing the melody. but then we also have like another chorus of Ariana Grande's kind of responding to that main melody.

We have another kind of puzzle here, another kind of trick in which everything perfectly fits together. Yeah. Like a little puzzle. And in a way, I don't know if this is intentional, but this reminds me so much of another kind of one of these techniques that we're was popular in the Baroque era, but in music, in some ways maybe the equivalent of like tromploid painting would be a technique called Hocket. So this is like a little bit of a classical master's segment that you're taking us on. This is a mini classical masters, yeah.

Okay. What is a Hocket? What is a Hocket? Great question. A hawkett is when two different musical parts fit together in a way where whenever one has a rest or a silence, the other one has a note, so that they are constantly kind of taking turns, going back and forth very, very quickly. Okay. Great. We can hear a short example of this in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

I like the hawkut. That's like DNA. It makes me think of DNA. What is DNA? Oh, my God. I love that. Yeah. Like a double helix.

Oh, like a double helix. You know, just like they kind of never, like, forever. bound and make something beautiful but never appear at the same time. I thought DNA for a second was another like really cool 70s disco reference of a band that I didn't know. I only know so much about the 70s. But yeah, that's really cool. I like that. It sounds like maybe I've convinced you that here again is another one of these tricks,

a moment where we have this incredibly complex hawkett, if you will, where all these different voices are intricately connected. I love that as in a strand. of DNA of nucleotides. And there's one other moment I want to talk about. Okay. Which is the moment right before this section, the bridge. Max Martin writes great bridges.

He does. And this is such a classic one because, again, it just becomes like really open and airy all of a sudden. Yeah. So trick number four. Some ways on the surface looks like a very kind of straight forward bridge. We have like kind of these instrumental hip. It's da, da, da, da.

And then there's a response from the vocalist. Let's have a listen to the bridge. Okay, cool. So, yeah, great bridge. And it sounds like a bridge should. It sounds new. It sounds like something we haven't heard before, kind of contrasts, changes up the texture and the rhythm.

And yet, I think that we have heard this before. We're both looking at each other like. We're giving each other side eye because you're not here. Yeah, I know. Like this is the moment, I'm like in an SVU episode where I'm like, it was you the whole time. Okay, I think we've heard this before, this very percussive hit section.

Bum, bum, bum. Yeah. Sounds new, but I wanna suggest we've heard this before, and I'll present my case by taking us to the pre-chorus where there's this little kind of obligato, a little ad lib, a little vocal interjection. He really likes big words. I might be showing up a little.

That's really high. It doesn't have any words. It's just like this wordless thing. It goes, ooh. All right. Here, have a listen. That's extraordinary. You got it.

That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. So basically he took that little ad lib, and turned it into a whole section. And turned it into a whole freaking section. Wow. This thing is a puzzle.

It's crazy, right? It's like I just picture, when I listen to this song, I just picture in my mind like some just like Rococo like golden mystery box or something and like everything that like unfolds on multiple sides and like folds back into itself. Yes, exactly. See you, Charlie gets it. Charlie this is why we work. Charlie understands. Well, okay, I have a question which is that. So this is basically like foreshadowing.

Yes. Yeah. Sort of. Right. Like, is that common? Is that good? Does that help? Like, are we already used to it subliminally?

So we like it more when we hear it in the bridge? Is that what's going on? Well, I think definitely. Because one of the trends that we've seen a lot happening this year, we talked a lot about the chain smokers this year on the show. And rather than jumping right into the chorus of a song, there have been these little intro sections where there's sort of a manipulated vocal that hints at the chorus to come.

And then they jump right into the verse. Got. Do you know what I'm talking? Here, let me play you one thing. Okay, yeah. If we listen to the chain smokers closer, it happens right at the very beginning. Yeah, it's happening at the beginning. Yeah, I think foreshadowing is a great word.

And I think it's another raison d'etra for being there. Could be that, keeping the French theater. Do you speak French? Analysis. He just knows French phrases. Goes back to what something came. Hayflay rightly brought up and that probably hasn't come up enough in this analysis I'm presenting so far, which is, again, like the lyrics and the message of this song, which is, like we said, trying to close the gap,

trying to get someone to shut up and kiss you, basically. So I feel like maybe this little phrase, which originally we heard when it says, so waiting for you to make a move before I make a move, and then kind of coming, like right for the final chorus of the song when we hear it again in the bridge is maybe kind of one more push again reminding us of that sound and of its meaning

where you know I'm waiting for you I gotta give you so maybe those are connected lyrically oh I like that idea oh wow that's a good one yeah I mean and I get that too when I listen to song and I think of something that my wife teases me about all the time

which is the first like the first time we went out she was just waiting for me to kiss her just to just like stop talking and like just waiting and waiting and I was just like talking about just probably like I am right now just talking and talking and talking and then I tried to kiss her and I was like on this lawn chair and like as I leaned over it like the backs like snap down and I like and I was then I was so embarrassed by that then it It took me another three hours to work up the nerve to go for it again. Oh, geez. Hey, one thing to interject really quick I just thought of.

Yeah, please. About the foreshadowing. Yeah. I think she says the words into you in the first line of the song. Yes, you're totally right. Yeah, the very first lyric is I'm so into you. So that's kind of interesting. Oh, that is interesting.

That's the first lyric. Like, just on the foreshadowing tip. I don't know what we're, that's just where my mind went. I was like, doesn't she say that? I also, something that came up for me that I heard a bunch of times was when she sings that line where she descends, I'm so into you, into you. She sings down the scale. Yeah. But she doesn't land on the final note.

That's right. You have to wait. Instead, like the music picks it up and it like kind of wants to keep going back recursively. Yeah. Right? It's actually, I think, how the first chorus lands. Yeah. No, you're totally right.

Yeah. Check this out. Yeah. So this is the song of circles. Yeah. Yeah. It keeps bringing us back. Yeah, yeah, another circle.

And that's so interesting because that that downward line happens at the very end of the ascending base pattern. Right. Right? Because it's the last line you hear before the chorus restarts. Oh, so they're going on counterpoint. Yeah, yeah. So this is a hawkett. Once again.

Well, not exactly, but kind of. It's very baroque. It's very broke. It is very, yeah. It may not be hawk it, but it's very baroque. It's very, it's very, oh no, I got a hot stock tip on a bock-hawket that I like to eat with my hot pocket when I'm in Patucket with my... Hot chocolate. Yeah.

Oh, God. Playing Boppet. So, yes. And at this point, I want to take a, I think we need to take a quick break. Yeah, we need a breather. Gather ourselves. But when we come back, I want to take this kind of musical analysis and transpose it to, someone we haven't talked about enough, who is the singer of this song, Ariana Grande.

Great. I want to suggest that in addition to this track, kind of having more than meets the ear, so does Ariana Grande herself. So stay tuned. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough.

Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women. at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me.

No, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue.

President Trump is now targeting predominantly democratic cities for ice raids and deportations. Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis Tuesday. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and America. in politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period? I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE.

When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated. My sense is that people want border at the border. They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up, instead of the third, top down. That's this week on America Actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. Welcome back to Switch on Pop. We are deep in it with my co-host Charlie Harding and our special guest, K. Flee. Now we... Is it your call sign? I just made it my call sign. That's a good call sign. Thank you. There's a pigeon entering the room now. Into you, Ariana Grande's smash hit of the little

less conversation, a little more touch of my body, full of these tricks of the ear, a baseline that turns out to be a human voice, interlocking rhythms, a baseline that sounds very complex, but turns out to be just moving up the scale and you're reusing a little vocal ad lib from the pre-courses, the bridge.

All of these tricks reveal a song that might be more than you expect on first listen. And I think that might be true of Ariana Grande. herself. This singer is emblematic of a theme that's come up on our show before as we analyze musics. Recently, we talked about Tov Lowe and her song Cool Girl. And I think there's a diminishment of the creative powers of these female pop stars that goes on. And I'm guilty of it. I think a lot of the media is guilty of it, a sort of condescending attitude, and as Ariana Grande,

herself suggests, an attitude in which everything about that singer has talked about except her music. I found an article in which CNN described her as a pint-sized pop princess, which, while lovely alliteration is also rather insulting, I think, to a serious artist. and when she goes on say a radio show this is what she has to deal with if you could use makeup or your phone one last time which one would you pick is this what you think girls have trouble choosing yeah absolutely is this is men assuming that that's what girls would have to choose between now this is not a question can you really go anywhere without your cell phone yes how long can you go without looking at many hours like to be present and and talking. Good quality. I contact.

Ladies learn. Listen and learn, ladies. Boys learn. Oh, excuse me. I'm speechless. How insulting to have a serious artist come on your show and ask them if they have makeup or there's, I mean, it boggles in my mind. Yeah, it's crazy. What adds to this as well is that she's like a pretty legit actor.

I mean, she's like really funny. She hosted SNL. I mean, she's like a multi-talented. She's not just a musician. Have you had interviews like this in promoting your work? I have not that bad of an interview, but she's also in like the super pop radio world, which I feel like is maybe harder in some ways. But yeah, I think there's a definite, definite bias in terms of the questions you're asked. And yeah, just the initial ways that people perceive you.

And I feel like that's got to be really frustrating. Yeah. I mean, it's frustrating for me in small ways, but I'm sure it's incredibly frustrating for her in big ways. I think listening to Ariana Grande a lot recently. I have so much respect for her. Like Kay Flee was saying, I think she's hysterical. I think she's like a really pretty good actress as well. And her voice is crazy.

Her voice is crazy. Yeah. Her vocal, and it's not just like hitting the high notes, it's the vocal control. It's crazy. Right. Because in this song, you hear, it's like there's eight different characters of Ariana. Grande. Yes. But also, I mean, let's talk about the high notes. Wow.

Oh, my gosh. That was insane. That's like superhuman. I'm not sure I caught that. Could you sing it back for me? I've, a little laryngitis. Otherwise, I'd be all over that. And the moment that kind of broke the secret of Ariana Grande, wide open for me was watching this performance of her doing another one of

her songs, Dangerous Woman, Acapella, without any processing or effects or anything. Just live, Acapella. We can just listen to a second of that. Again, I think it's pretty stunning. I want later the taste of flavor,

because I'm a taker, because I'm a giver. It's only nature. I live for danger. Oh, that you guys skin is skin. Oh, wow. Speechless? Yeah, I don't have much commentary there.

I'm just astonished. And that's great, but that's not all. Ariana Grande, I also discovered, is very into cutting edge musical technology. Okay. In her live show, she does something kind of incredible. She uses these, I'm not totally sure on how this works, but she uses these gloves that were designed by the musician Imogene Heap in collaboration with some scientists. And they're gloves that are hooked up to your amplified voice and you use hand motions to control and manipulate your voice as you sing.

So it's like a theramen with gloves? Yeah, yeah, actually, I didn't think of that, but yeah. Or like something. I don't know. I don't know. I think that's totally it. Yeah. A theremin with gloves that transforms your own voice.

The crowd is so excited. That's amazing. That's awesome. We've got to get you some gloves. I know. I think I need gloves. Yeah. I think they're only $2,000.

In a way, listening and watching this, it reminds me of a lot of the sounds on, say, Boney Vair's most recent album. And yet I don't really see her receiving the same kind of accolades from highbrow music publications that someone like Boni Vare is. And I think this comes back to a perception of her as not serious, as unintelligent, is not in charge of her own sort of musical destiny. And that seems utterly bogus to me after exploring her work in more depth. I agree, bogus. Definitely bogus. I disagree with you on one thing, Nate.

What's that? About highbrow music publications because as far as highbrow goes, you weren't about as highbrow as it gets. So you're a good counter example. Oh, shucks. So, I mean, there's so much more to say about the song about Ariana Grande, but stepping back, this is my case. This is my closing argument into you, a song with perhaps a simple surface that the

Further you dig reveals more and more tricks making what is on the superficial surface appear simpler than it actually is. Maybe something similar happening with the song singer Ariana Grande herself. We are given this picture of her that seems very simple. What was it? The pint-sized pop princess when actually beneath the surface there's so much. much more going on. There is artistry there. Incredible artistry. We're nodding. We're nodding. I'm nodding too. We're all nodding. In like solemn agreement and sadness. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like, yeah, solemnity and celebration at the same time. I think that's equanimity. Yes. And, and that's what I got into you. Beautiful. I'm into you, Nate. Same. We're into Ariana. We're all into Ariana. Yeah. Oh, I'm so glad. And also, I feel like we're used to hearing like tremendously great vocal performances because of technology. But again, like in a live setting, she is tremendously great. I hate that I've just said tremendous. I believe it's because of the president. And that is really horrifying me.

It's huge. It's so sorry. Okay. Anyway, rescind tremendous. But you know what I mean. Yeah. Right. Well, it is the dishonest, crooked media that's made you think otherwise.

so I understand. I really am overwhelmingly impressed. I had no idea. I mean, I had some idea, but no idea. So for our final segment, we're going to do a piece we call off the charts, and this is where we take a song that we think is absolutely tremendous. Oh, God. No, no.

But it's not quite made it onto the charts. We think it should, and we break it down. And so, Kay Flet, I want to talk about your song, Blood in the Cut, off of your EP, Crush Me. Boy, love's got another girl. You might be, I don't have an apartment. Thought if I was smart, I make it far, but I'm still at this start. Guess I'm contagious.

It'd be safest if you ran. That's what they all just end up doing in the end. Would it be fair to say that this is a breakup song? Yeah, it is a breakup song. And I think for me, what was interesting, and I think ended up being reflected in it, is that I wrote it when I was really sad. And then I recorded it and produced it when I wasn't sad anymore. So I feel like the verses have some of that,

the original kind of spirit of my mental state and the song. And the like instrumental breakdown is the catharsis or whatever. Cool. Yeah. I feel like the song has this, um, an interior part. a very exterior part, moving from the verse into the chorus. So the song starts really restrained.

Can you share a bit about what's going on in this opening of the song? Yeah, I mean, I literally wrote this in my mom's basement. Oh, geez. I was home for Christmas. The lyrics to this song, which are kind of a little bit jarring, I guess, at the beginning. That was just how I felt. Like, I was kind of writing stream of consciousness. And I say in there, I don't have an apartment, which was true at the time.

I didn't live anywhere. So the song's pretty, it was not calculated in any way. I think it was just like a, I mean, I forgot about the song. I thought it never would have come out if I like hadn't played it for a couple people. I feel like I hear that. If we just take those first two lines, I think they're so powerful, not just because of the curse word in the second line. Right. But because they don't rhyme.

Totally. I never thought about that. That's really kind of jarring in a way that makes the singer's state of mind very, like, palpable, I guess. Whoa. That is weird that they don't rhyme. Yeah. It makes it that much harder, though. It does land kind of hard.

Yeah, I mean, truly, I was not thinking about any kind of rules when I was doing this, you know, and I think that maybe some of that translated as a consequence. you know, there wasn't like a structure that I was considering. It's super raw. In any way, yeah. One of the things that does guide us throughout the entire song, though, is that it is a really riff-oriented song, right? There's this one thing that just pretty much goes throughout the entire track. Yeah.

Right. I actually, I heard it almost like a blues riff. And it made me think actually of something like can't get no satisfaction. Even though this is a really heavy song in some ways, it reckons back to, old 60s 70s riff rock totally I mean that's largely by virtue of the fact that I'm not a very good

guitar player I'm just I was actually just watching the Metallica documentary the other like couple of weeks ago and just thinking about like riffs and how I mean I've always gravitated towards really really simple

kind of bluesy but not super sad sounding riffs but still ones that have like an element of melancholy and I feel like there kind of is to this one I don't know maybe Nate you have an analysis of the notes I don't really know but um but yeah I tend to to like really simple things and to kind of just follow those things as far as they will take me is the reference about painting the car black at a reference at all to the stones take my car and paint it black take my Totally, completely.

Yeah. I was obsessed with that song as a child because it made no sense to me. And it felt like demonic. Well, okay, talking about demonic. Yeah. How does this song escalate? Where does it go? I mean, the song really, to me, doesn't reach its climax until the end, the final chorus.

When I'm doing the octave, higher vocal. of the hook, I guess, technically, um, on it. And to me, that's like the moment of real power. This is like an F you. You know, that's like the final. It's like the sign off. Yeah.

To the letter. Ooh. You know. Huh. So that's where I feel like it ends up and where it, and it's a pretty short song. Yeah. So it just kind of ends.

But like with a big loud moment. It sounds like if, uh, it sounds like if, if we were talking about the stones earlier, this is like if Trent Reznor did the stones. Oh, totally. Yeah. I mean, I think what's funny is I love heavy music. Yeah. But I'm not really a heavy person. I mean, I am, but I feel like I'm not that, like, I'm not that dark. I'm kind of happy most of the time. And so, yeah, it's like that this song is me kind of tapping into that, you know, dipping my right foot into the pool of darkness.

I think no matter our dispositions, there's always a time in our lives when we just need noise and the buzz of a sub. I find that so cathartic. And as Charlie was pointing out, just what a beautiful bit of word painting that when you say the buzz of a sub. And then we get that.

That sawtooth sub-subs synth just slinks in underneath. That is like really. really satisfying. Well, I have to give credit right there to, so the producer that I worked with on this song, his name is J.T. Daily, and he was the one who was like,

there should be a sub there. So that's really all JT. I was totally on board, of course. But yeah, that's a JT special. If we can just stay on this moment for one second, the website Genius, formerly rap genius Are you both familiar with that

Sailor? Very familiar. It's crowdsourced annotated lyrics you can offer your own interpretations of lyrics. I just wanted to I don't know if you've seen your page for this song but there's some very inventive interpretations of that line

especially the buzz of a sub. I don't think I know about this. Here's one sub means submissive the buzz of a sub refers to the high subs get

Echem under certain conditions the whip reference is a straightforward extension of and then it gets cut off but I imagine the sort of S&M meaning here Whoa that was not

the intended I mean but that's the thing about lyric is like it can mean anything to anyone and that's a great thing But that was not my intended meaning. And I actually was not familiar that sub was an abbreviation for that. I mean either. I was just going like sub, sound sub bass, sub woofer.

I feel like with the sound in there, the literalness is pretty present. But yeah. But crack of the wit, you know, I get that. That could maybe. If your mindset is like if you have an S&M world. view. Maybe you're seeing everything through the like glasses of bondage, you know, and just sort of I feel like you're picking up some of the metaphoric language. Nate, you poisoned my mind.

So what kind of darkness are? What's really going on in this chorus for you? I mean, I think for me in this song, it's about being in a relationship that for whatever reason is not good for you and needing external things to both distract you on some level. And I think the flip of that, though, is for me, sometimes like when I inundate myself with a feeling, when I like turn music up really loud or when I experience something very intensely, you kind of transcend it. You know, I think the only way you get over things is by, you know, fully immersing yourself in that experience, in that feeling. And then you control it.

You have power over it. So for me, the song was really about taking this feeling, amplifying it, and getting to decide what the narrative was instead of this other person who, you know, it felt like had a lot of control over me. Beautiful tune. K-Fle, you're heading out on tour in the U.S. and Canada. Correct. Yeah, all of February in the U.S. And then Canada, pretty much all of March and lots of new music coming soon. So great. And so people can find that at kFlay.com. That's it. And the EP is Crush Me. The song is Blood and the Cut. It's available anywhere you find the music. Listen to it. It's wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us on the show. Thank you guys for having me. This is so much fun. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, that was truly awesome. Maybe we'll hear some Ariana Grande covers. in that upcoming tour as well.

Although I really don't think I can pull that off. Switched on Pop is produced by me, Nate Sloan. And edited by me, Charlie Harding, and Bill Lance. Huge thanks again to our special guest, Kay Flee. And you can find more of our episodes on whatever podcast listener you use or online at switchedonpop.com. If you have thoughts about the show,

you can find us on Facebook or Twitter at SwitchDon Pop. We'd love to talk to you there. Switch on Pop is a proud member of the Panopplea Network. And we're going to be back in two weeks with another episode. Until then, thanks for listening.

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