You Don’t Have To Think

U.S. Girls “Incidental Boogie”

“Incidental Boogie” has the sexy mechanical strut of Goldfrapp in their Black Cherry/Supernature schaffel phase, and without paying much attention it comes off as a sleek funk song about BDSM. If you pay attention… well, it gets a lot more complicated. Remy’s character in the song is a woman who is trying to rationalize being the victim of domestic abuse, and is making her new man out to be a real sweetheart since he leaves no marks so she can go to work without any fuss. This is grim stuff, especially when it’s clear that this woman doesn’t really have a frame of reference aside from this sort of abusive romance, and is conditioned to be bored without it. The verses are at some points genuinely uncomfortable – “Life made no sense without a beating, you see?” – but the chorus offers a glimmer hope in her dawning realization that this sort of thing isn’t really doing much for her.

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