an ode to Carly Rae Jepsen

a true patron saint of Valentine's Day.

‘In true love’ - Valentine postcard (1900-1909).

Good morning or good afternoon and happy Valentine’s Day ❣️Currently I am trying to finish reading Mrs. Dalloway, and the last three albums I listened to are III, What if Nothing, and Blur. The last movie I watched is 13 Going on 30. For the 14th I have decided to only listen to love songs, which is easy because almost every song is a love song (not necessarily to a person).

I have a very inexplicable fondness for Valentine’s Day that no one, not even manipulative February store tactics, will persuade me out of. Genuinely do feel a strange affection for Saint Valentine, saint of the City of Lovers and epilepsy and beekeepers and courtly love, the last all because of his association with February’s lovebirds.

Mostly I love anybody who feels unloved on Valentine’s Day. And of course, it is all about my favourite things: pink, hearts, chocolate, and rom-coms.

“I want to dance, laugh, eat pink cakes.”

– Virginia Woolf, The String Quartet

It is also about Carly Rae Jepsen, but we’ll get to that.

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I feel like maybe I should preface this with some sort of advance notice. Like, I don’t think everyone needs to like Valentine’s Day. I promise I am not here to earnestly preach at you like a churchgoer handing out flyers by the train station to please accept the love of Carly Rae Jepsen into your hearts. I am definitely not making a serious music review. So I guess that is the warning. But I don’t want to apologize for any of it, or feel as if it’s too much¹, so I won’t.

My mom said something once about an old song coming back as a meme. The rough translation in English is something like, who brought this song back out? Like there was a drawer full of old music and every once in a while, you could reach in and take one out. It’s some offhand comment she probably hasn’t thought about since, but it stuck with me.

I want to reach back into old music like I’m reaching into my heart. Sit and listen and think that I am there still where I listened to it first.

Carly Rae Jepsen isn’t old music, obviously.² But to me, ten-year-old me who listened to “Run Away With Me” on repeat all night so I could fall asleep and seventeen-year-old me who holds “Run Away With Me” in my mind’s music hall of fame, she has marked every year of my life.

Also, she is Canadian, so, that’s a win for me.

I like that CRJ is sometimes thought of as a one-hit wonder by most people. I like that practically no one I’ve ever met has listened to her first album, Tug of War (2008), which is actually a solid album for its obscurity, and way more indie folk rock than I expected. I like that it’s Call Me Maybe that people associate her with, and that Call Me Maybe is one of the most clever pop songs I’ve ever heard, and that more importantly, it’s one of the most fun pop songs I’ve ever heard. It’s fascinating to me how people underestimate Kiss (2012). Critics praised the vocals, writing, and production. They just thought it was too immature for her age, 26.

Too immature. I’ve been thinking about this wording. The first thing to come to my mind is indignation. Sure, there isn’t really a serious song on that album. The Justin Bieber collab is a little hit-or-miss. “Tonight I’m Getting Over You” has that truly incredible dubstep chorus which was everywhere in 2012. It feels a bit like a relic from the 2010’s to listen to it now.³ But so what? Is it because of the sparkly, bubblegum-pop pink album cover? 26 is too old for that, apparently. It’s not that I really care about what the critics of 2012 had to say about Kiss. I just think it’s interesting: clear disdain for an album which is unashamed and silly. It’s rare to hear songs from such a defenceless pop album on the radio 10 years later. Mainstream pop music isn’t dead, but so much of it is so guarded that it feels forgettable. Free of human imperfection or taint. Clinical, detached. CRJ is anything but. That’s what I love best about her discography.

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In its 2015 release Emotion sought to escape from the infectious pop success of “Call Me Maybe”, half out of sheer rebellion. There is in fact a scrapped indie folk album CRJ wrote to escape the shadow of Kiss’s hit single lying out there somewhere. Maybe it’s ironic, then, that what I love about Kiss is the same thing I love about Emotion, and Dedicated, and even Tug of War. It’s the heart-on-your-sleeve sensibility: flaying yourself for the promise of love, and in return, being recognized, being seen. Or flaying yourself and receiving nothing at all, and being miserable about it.

Kiss isn’t quite there, but that feeling is present. Emotion elaborates on this vulnerability in a way that is kind of magical. I think about please don’t go, look real close from “Favourite Colour” every day. The earnest want etched out in that one line feels too personal for me to even listen to. Naked like bare frost-bitten trees.

– la hallucinations

But Emotion also feels impossibly bright, like the unreasonably warm days in February that we’ve been having here lately: precious sun and wind rattling at the sky. Tinted with 80’s nostalgia, it’s an embodiment of the opposing desire for intimacy, and rejection of intimacy, and acceptance of either.

She says it herself in a 2016 interview:

“What I loved was how potent some of those lyrics were — how heart wrenching, how everyone’s tea leaves are just right there on their sleeve. In music today, everything is a little more coy, but I wanted that romance and that fantasy, and I think that a lot of people [my] age do.”

If Emotion is brimming with possibility and timelessness and charm, Dedicated (2019) is grounded, confident in its self.

He needs me he needs me. The echo of be tormented by me babe, from Emotion’s title track, just bolder. The working title was “Music to Clean Your House To”, which Pitchfork called an unassuming goal, but I completely adore. Listening to music when you’re cleaning your house alone is close to seeing God.

– fake mona lisa

Dedicated says it is all going to be okay. Still lovelorn, lovetorn, lovesick, but sure in its devotion.

– let’s sort the whole thing out

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What does this entire ramble have to do with Valentine’s Day, besides the obvious?

When I listen to CRJ, I think about people at a beach throwing themselves at the sand with reckless abandon. Just look at “Now I Don’t Hate California After All”, with its tinkling slow synths and the waves breathing in. Love on the beach and the tide is high. Moon and the water and the open sky. 

It’s a vulnerability (keeping my fingers crossed) that is filled with sentimental, silly, and sincere confessions: This kiss is something I can’t resist! I really really really really like you! I want you in my room! Baby, take me to the feeling.

The honour of the highest of these dramatic love declarations belongs to “Run Away With Me” and its I’ll be your hero and win it! When the lights go out, run away with me! but it’s a staple of practically every song. Of course she isn’t the only pop artist to capture vulnerability and sing it into feeling. But she makes me feel it. She strikes that balance between miserable and joyful. I don’t really care, I’ve got worse problems, she sings in “Boy Problems”, as if it can be that easy.

Listening to her feels impossibly loud, impossibly big. Unabashedly honest and unapologetically romantic in the way she lays all her cards on the table, but knows when to walk away (“When I Needed You”, “Party for One”, and “Boy Problems”). And I know Marina said to wear our hearts on our cheeks, never on our sleeves, but I have had enough of that. I want that vulnerability now.

I am always silly about being sincere. I want to be sincere about being silly.

– real love

I’ve always liked that Valentine’s Day dream they try to sell you on, the one where you confess your feelings and everything is all right with the world. They like you back and you are living the life you wanted to watching the sun rise on a rooftop, never alone again.

It is an unattainable dream, in most cases. That idea is present in tons of Carly Rae Jepsen’s songs. But another idea pressing at the edges like dead flowers on paper is that you confess your feelings and it totally backfires instead. But you tried. And whenever I listen to her I have that urge to put myself out there even if it backfires. Especially if it backfires.

I feel desire spun in ribbons round the record. That is her magic.

– run away with me (of course)

In conclusion. Carly please put your green KISS crewneck back on your merch site, and everyone, please eat a heart-shaped chocolate today unless you are allergic to chocolate or just dislike it in which case I am sending you an air kiss anyway.

xo

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P.S.

A DEFINITE RANKING OF EVERY CRJ ALBUM

1. Emotion (2015)

2. Emotion: Side B (2016)

3. Dedicated: Side B (2020)

4. Dedicated (2019)

5. Kiss (2012)

6. Tug of War (2008)

1. just like “Too Much” by Carly Rae Jepsen from Dedicated (2019) haha would you believe that wasn’t intentional

2. however, happy 10 year anniversary to kiss (2012)

3. i am a fan of this, personally