With "Everybody Loves You," SOAK lets go of the self-protective reticence that's marked her early life and takes a risk. Director Joseph Wilson sets her dreamy pop song in a fantasy world out of A Clockwork Orange, a world where joining in seems tempting, but dangerous.
SOAK's Bridie Monds-Watson writes in a press release that "Everybody Loves You" is "a song about extreme denial. More specifically about my stubborn ability to convince myself I don't want something that I do and blind my rational thought process. I suppose in this case, as a way of self-protection (and avoiding vulnerability)."
But midway through, the song drops its cool facade, breaking open into a blissful and sincere confession that we seem to be overhearing.
"The lift at the end of the song ('Everybody wants you / And I do too') represents the almost comedic/foolish acceptance of my own feelings," she continues. "A 360 turn of events in which I then so desperately want all that I had rejected and pushed away — a consistent theme of my younger self."
"Everybody Loves You" comes from SOAK's second album, due 2019 on Rough Trade Records. It follows her 2015 debut Before We Forgot How to Dream, a collection of spare, experimental melodies that sound like dispatches from a private room with the door shut. But here, the 22-year-old artist opens up, showing us not only her fears, but her fantasies.
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