Stream: Bleached, ‘Stupid Boys’

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Bleached (Photo by Joey Mullen)

Jennifer Clavin says the new Bleached single “Stupid Boys” is one of those songs whose context changed after she wrote it.

The bouncy, biting rocker with call-and-response verses, Bleached’s first new material since last year’s album “Do You Think You’ve Had Enough?,” originally was a take on lousy relationships. But after the Burger Records scandal (the press release for the new song links to KEXP’s recent reporting), Clavin found some subtext in her own words.

Here’s what she says:

“Making light of a dark situation has been a tool I’ve used to get through challenging times. Specifically, a way I’ve often honored my recovery is to tell my story through my lyrics — this time the subject is crazy ex-boyfriends. This started out as a jokey song, something light-hearted, meant to be danced to … or so I thought. After the most recent flood of ‘me too’ call-outs around men in the music scene, I returned to this song and felt somewhat surprised, because the lyrics actually aren’t so light-hearted, and they directly refer back to experiences related to the reckoning we just saw go down.

“I don’t wanna keep dwelling on the past and all its fucked-up-ness, but I also don’t wanna ignore it and brush it under the rug like it never happened. What I do believe is that life is about finding a balance between the dark and light, and if I want inner peace I have to allow the light in to absorb the dark. So maybe this song has changed shape, just like our understanding of things change over time, with perspective, and now it is both a vessel for some painful memories and a testament to growth and healing, and to me, that’s what music is for. I’m proud of this song for so many reasons, but most especially because it strikes that balance for me, and I hope for you, too.”

The band will do a streaming show tonight at 7 as part of General Election, a new advocacy initiative for voter education. Katzù Oso also performs and tickets are available here.

||| Stream: “Stupid Boys”

||| Previously: Live at the Moroccan Lounge, “Hard to Kill,” “Flipside”