#detour

One of the other new* (*again... I'm late) Kim Petras songs is Jeep and it's so good.

Music video link.

On first listen, it's a straightforward song about two exes reuniting and hooking up, laden with imagery of "middle America shit."

The first few seconds of the song are an acoustic guitar, but then this echoing electronic music comes in and then quickly disappears. Live, slightly-country twinged instruments are most of the song, but the electronic elements occasionally pop in, haunting the song.

At around the 2:30 mark, Kim sings the last chorus lines with finality and the song comes to an end. Or at least it sounds like it does, but then there's a whole nother minute, a bridge with the electronic elements building and building into an unsteady and sudden ending.

She might have ended the song at the 2:30 mark (short songs encourage replaying! And her album has lots of short songs) but this extra minute enacts the theme of breaking up but then starting over, and yet, as the electronic elements win over the acoustic ones, the song ends suddenly, the implication is the relationship is still unstable and is going to end again. ("We've been down this road before / and we both know where it leads.")

On second listen, you realize the implication is that he may be unwilling to be fully with her, probably because of her transness. ("Your mama thinks I'm bad for you / Your friends all think you're bad for me"; "Go totally incognito.")

The imagery of the Jeep adds to the instability--in the lyrics, they never are at each others' place, only at bars, at a gas station, having sex in the car itself, like teenagers sneaking out. Maybe he's not willing to bring her home, even if he can't help but tell others about her. (Like the discordant relationship between the live instruments and the electronic music, they probably "shouldn't" go together, but they work for a while.)

This unwillingness to fully incorporate her in his life is most clear in the music video, where the love interest is predominantly visually obscured, whether it's his bangs in his face, if he's slightly offscreen, in the background and walking off screen, or even obscured by Kim's body. He's also looking away from the camera and away from Kim.

Kim, meanwhile, is always front and center, unable to hide the way he chooses to.

This distant imagery of the love interest is often in a contrast with the lyrics she's singing. Like the shot below where the line is "You look so pretty when you talk to me" when he's walking behind her and definitely not talking to her--is he even acknowledging her in the gas station even though they came in there together?? No wonder she looks annoyed in this shot.

This changes in a scene where they are alone together in what looks like an undecorated, only sort-of lived-in, apartment in Paris. Though most of the shots of him here are obscured like before, he finally looks at Kim, and there are two clearer shots of his face.

I can't even think about his birthday cake........... this is long enough...... we can't go there......

The vibe of the song and video is no matter how he acts in public, he does have feelings for her, but is ashamed of her and unwilling to incorporate her in his life. This leaves their relationship to be apartment-only, their public life limited to these liminal spaces like the Jeep and the gas station (and the fields and roads in the middle of nowhere in the video). She is so attracted to him especially when he is being vulnerable with her, that she is willing to put up with the little he gives. At least for a while.