I RIDE FOR YOU, GIRL!

Written by Skylar Sanders

Charli XCX’s BRAT burst onto the scene in June 2024, amassing well over 80 million Spotify streams in its first full week. The now-iconic neon green used in her minimalistic, yet striking, album cover became a visual phenomenon, capturing the attention of party girls and meme enjoyers everywhere.

BRAT explores themes of guilt, youth and growing out of it, and the pressures placed on women to choose between having a successful career and motherhood. Among the album’s standout tracks,“ Girl, so confusing” shines with its raw, unapologetic authenticity. The song opens with a gut-punching line:“ Girl, it’s so confusing sometimes to be a girl.”

For those familiar with the long-standing tension between hyper-pop sensation Charli XCX and musical prodigy Lorde, the song seemed like a direct address to Lorde, striking a chord with many who have navigated the transition from girlhood to womanhood. I’m not sure how many of us saw a remix coming featuring the artist - especially one where they would “ work it out.”

I listened to “ The girl, so confusing version with lorde” before doing my month-long deep-dive into Charli’s discography, mainly because Lorde is an artist who was always there for me in my youth. The remix transported me back to all the mornings spent taking the bus to school with “ White Teeth Teens” and “ 400 Lux” blasting in my earbuds. Only this time, I wasn’t an angsty preteen confused about where I was headed - but a 22-year-old woman driving myself along the same roads I grew up on. It was a full-circle, tears-streaming-down-my-face-in-traffic moment to say the least.

In the remix, Lorde sings,“ You always said ‘ Let’s go out’ / But then I’d cancel last minute / I was so lost in my head / And scared to be in your pictures.”

Lorde has spoken about feeling “ misunderstood”, while Charli felt“ trapped” by her jealousy over Lorde’s success with “ Royals”. The feud between the two artists was exacerbated by the music industry’s exploitation for entertainment value, treating a complicated conflict between female artists as a spectacle, setting a damaging precedent, and perpetuating a culture of competition rather than collaboration. I’ve seen situations like this in my circles, and I can’t even begin to imagine the pressure created by so many eyes watching.

It has been my experience that women unless surrounded by other women actively dedicated to empowering each other, shy away from discussing the shared sentiment of feeling like we are obligated to compete with each other. It’s something we forget about temporarily, in club bathrooms or male-dominated conversations about feminism, when we band together to remind ourselves that we’re in this together - but this feeling is often fleeting.

Women are conditioned as girls to compete with one another for validation, driven by societal expectations that demand perfection and subservience. (Cue America Ferrera’s Barbie monologue!) This competitive mindset, worsened by patriarchal standards, is internalized and projected onto other women, creating a cycle of rivalry and isolation. It influences our relationships and interactions, as seen in the prevalent meme of the “ pick-me-girl”, who seeks male validation by putting down other women. And though it’s something we poke fun at for clicks and a quick laugh, it reveals something much more sinister - isolation and grief surrounding the “ could’ve been’s”, lost connections, and shame about our jealousy.

Lorde sings, “ I never thought for a second / My voice was in your head / ‘Girl, you walk like a bitch’ / When I was ten someone said that / And it’s just self defense / Until you’re building a weapon / She believed my projection / And now I totally get it / Forgot that inside that icon / There’s still a young girl from Essex.” 

These lines in particular speak to the internalization of oppression and the projection of our insecurities onto others. This reflection on self-defense mechanisms and the pain of lost connections underscores the theme of grief in their collaboration.

This song feels like an expression of abandonment of isolation in favor of rekindling a connection that had felt disingenuous. With lines like,“ 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”, the song challenges us to confront our big feelings and hopefully work through them.

Charli and Lorde’s unlikely collaboration ultimately highlights the complexity of their relationship and offers a valuable lesson - by confronting our rivalries and fostering open dialogue, we can create a more supportive and authentic environment for all women. It challenges us to break free from competitive paradigms and honor our shared experiences as women through communication and understanding.