Samhi C.

Features Editor

skc5908@psu.edu

I like the music. 

Almost. 

The one part that got really annoying really fast was the third iteration of the “Dancing on, I keep” stanza. The volume went from 1 to 100 in five seconds with the drop of a new beat. Great for dancing at the club; not fun if you are listening to the song with headphones on maximum allowed volume. The whole point of keeping the volume right below the red “warning: hearing audio at this volume will damage your ears” bar is so that you don’t have to listen to music at volumes that will damage your ears. 

Whoever mixed the song needs to learn a little more about volume editing. Going from really quiet to really not in a second is not only jarring but does not particularly give any power to the song. 

However, as we move into the fourth stanza, the volume and the beat stabilize themselves. And overall, except for that one stanza, the song has cool beats, rhythms, and instrumentals. 

But music alone does not make a song. 

There are, I will admit, some songs that we listen to simply because they sound good, ignoring the lyrics or at least ignoring that they may not make sense. In the day to day, whether or not a song makes sense becomes less important than how we feel listening to it. But, from the perspective of a reviewer, the lyrics of Ariana Grande’s latest song “Yes, And?” felt important enough to pay attention to. 

No lies: even I, as someone who does value songs for their sound sometimes more than for their lyrics, could not avoid the fact that her lyrics are a little confusing and inconsistent. The majority of the song, I will concede, stays on topic with regards to spreading the message about self-love and ignoring what others think about you. However, the line “Boy, come on, put your lipstick on” and “I won’t hide | Underneath your own projections | Or change my most authentic life” all indicate this song is about or for the transgender community. For almost two-thirds of the song, there are enough indications in the lyrics that this song is about self-identity, especially with regards to gender identity and gender expression, and about living one’s truth without caring whether or not others support you. 

And then we hit the problem line: “Why do you care so much whose d*ck I ride?”

While the sentiment is one I fully agree with, its placement immediately annoyed me because sexuality has nothing to do with gender identity and expression. This line reminded me of the numerous times I have had to explain to my cousins or family friends who grew up anywhere other than America that not every gay guy is a transfemme and vice versa. 

As much as I can appreciate why the LGBTQ+ are all lumped into one community, we really should not be. Gender identity and sexual preferences are two separate things. I say this as a cisgender woman who is not straight and who is more feminine in physicality and more masculine in personality. It irritates me that people assume I am going to somehow act less feminine because I am not straight just as much as it annoys me that people assume any time I do things that are not feminine it is because of my sexual and romantic orientations. Even more annoying is when people automatically assume I must be straight when I show up in a pretty dress. But that is a whole other conversation for another time… 

Back to the topic at hand: The rest of the lyrics that follow the line in question fit with the original context but now they hold a twofold meaning. Not only are they about honest self-expression in terms of gender identity, but now they seem to also be discussing sexuality?

I did a double-take and listened to the song again to see if I could make sense of the line or if there was more in the song to indicate this song was trying to tackle issues regarding multiple identity expressions rather than just the one. It was an unsuccessful endeavor. 

Meanwhile various articles across Google claim that the song is Grande’s response to people objecting to her relationship with the “Spongebob” guy, Ethan Slater. If this were the case, then that one line would make a lot of sense. But then half of the rest of the lines would not. 

My next step in trying to ascertain the true meaning of the song was to watch the music video. I rarely ever watch music videos. They distort my own imagination. But I made an exception this time. The video did not particularly help. The beginning of it features a bunch of suits complaining about how they liked the “old Ari” and do not like who she is right now. From there, we move to these suits sitting down to watch a performance in a concrete room featuring Ariana and a bunch of extras whose names we do not know. The suits are captivated by the performance and are left impressed by the end of the video. 

The video indicates this song has nothing to do about gender identity or about sexuality and has everything to do with Ariana’s personal and professional identities.

The only thing that seems consistent in my findings is that the song is about identity. But which kind or kinds seems to change based on which details you examine.