Brat has been released for a hot minute, and Charli XCX is dominating the charts and music industry right now. Her new album gives cool, rich, club rat energy in the best possible way. Charli managed to turn heads in her direction again with the “The girl, so confusing” remix she recently released.
The reason the song is trending isn’t just because Charli has perfectly summarized the relationship between two 20-something teenage frenemies, but because of her collaboration with Lorde. The two singers have been thought to be in a feud for years because of their similarities in looks and the timeline of their rises to fame, but this “The girl, so confusing version with lorde” is definitely putting all of those rumors to rest.
The song’s main reason for the ending of their feud is simply that they’re both just girls. Charli makes this very clear with her opener being “Girl, it’s so confusing sometimes to be a girl,” followed by “Man, I don’t know I’m just a girl,” which is clearly a nod to the idea that Charli and Lorde probably didn’t know how to deal with being compared to each other, especially since they were both very young when they first entered the music industry.
In the first verse, Charli sings, “Yeah, I don’t know if you like me / Sometimes I think you might hate me / Sometimes I think I might hate you / Maybe you just wanna be me,” which again goes back to the idea of these two women constantly being pitted against one another. To me, this is Charli saying that because the two artists have very different musical styles, it was just assumed they’d hate each other.
In the same verse, Charli also admits feeling that awkwardness because they aren’t really alike as she sings, “You always say, ‘Let’s go out’ / So we go eat at a restaurant / Sometimes it feels a bit awkward / ‘Cause we don’t have much in common.”
In the pre-chorus, Charli identifies some of the similarities that the media has pointed out between them but makes it clear that she never really saw those similarities. “People say we’re alike / They say we’ve got the same hair / We talk about making music / But I don’t know if it’s honest / Can’t tell if you wanna see me / Falling over and failing / And you can’t tell what you’re feeling / I think I know how you feel.” To me, this kind of gives the vibe of when your mom tries to help you make friends in elementary school; you both acknowledge how alike you are on a basic level, but there’s something that’s preventing you from making that friendship.
The second verse is from Lorde’s perspective, where she flat-out tells us all about her perspective. Lorde says, “Well, honestly, I was speechless / When I woke up to your voice note/ You told me how you’d been feeling / Let’s work it out on the remix.” So there are a few things we know for certain from these lyrics: there was definitely a rift between the two singers, Charli sent a voice note that probably accumulated years of pent-up feelings, and the two came together to recreate this masterpiece.
Lorde continues to get into her side of the frenemy situation, as she sings “I was trapped in a hatred / And your life seemed so awesome/ I never thought for a second/ My voice was in your head.” Lorde’s explanation is perfectly clear. She makes it known that there may have been an olive branch extended to Lorde from Charli, but she rejected it because of her issues with the scrutiny of her body image.
Lorde then goes on to say that any comments she may have made toward Charli were done out of defensiveness, and the last three lines of the second verse, “And now I totally get it / Forgot that inside that icon / There’s still a young girl from Essex,” makes it clear that they both understand they were just young girls who were essentially told they should hate each other.
Their pre-chorus together is possibly one of the best portions of their song as they sing, “People say we’re alike / They say we’ve got the same hair / It’s you and me on the coin / The industry loves to spend / And when we put this to bed / The internet will go crazy/ I’m glad I know how you feel.” There is nothing better than two women acknowledging their similarities and differences while coming together and making amends.
Skipping ahead to the outro, the song literally ends with the two women saying they ride for each other. “The girl, so confusing version with lorde” is evidence that life as a girl really is so confusing; we’re made to hate one another for being a little too similar or a little too different, but we’re really all just 20-something girls trying to live our lives.
Because of this song, I’m officially changing my ways and will no longer be a hater. In the spirit of “The girl, so confusing” remix, I officially pledge to never hate another woman in my industry just because we’re a little too similar or different, and I think we should all take this pledge.