As MARINA once said on “Froot,” “Livin’ la dolce vita/Life couldn’t get much sweeter.” Sophie Ellis-Bextor has decided to piggyback off the sentiment/statement with her latest breezy single, “Dolce Vita.” Because, while summer might feel like it’s already over for some people (*cough cough* Tame Impala, with his new song, “End of Summer”), Sophie Ellis-Bextor wants to keep the season in full swing. Perhaps even breezier than the single that preceded it in May, “Taste” (far more of a Taurus anthem than Sabrina Carpenter’s, who actually is a Taurus). And, talking of breeziness, Ellis-Bextor mentions it in the very first verse of the song, transporting her listeners to some far-off, unbothered destination with the evocative verse, “The sand on my skin like cinnamon/A breeze whispers through my hair/Nothin’ on my mind except a cool drink/I close my eyes, I’m almost there.”
And, as is the case with “Taste,” the dreamy sound of the music is once again tinged with disco-fied beats that only amplify as the song progresses, this time courtesy of producers Karma Kid and Baz Kaye, who complement the lyrics with sonic levity. The kind that will have one echoing Ellis-Bextor’s thoughts when she sings, “My heartbeat dances with the radio/I move my body to recline/Nowhere to go so I just take it slow/I’ve got that summer state of mind.” And, to Ellis-Bextor, that state of mind is clearly the opposite of Lana Del Rey lamenting, “I got that summertime, summertime sadness.”
But there’s nothing to be sad about as far as Ellis-Bextor can tell—war, famine and general unrest be damned! Such is the tenacity of a white lady on vacation. Besides, at this point, why not? A girl’s got to get her enjoyment where she can, so few and far between as it is au présent. Which is precisely what Ellis-Bextor encourages others to do, taking her inspiration from the Italian philosophy that has long held the belief that one should indulge themselves in the simple pleasures that life has to offer (namely, food, drink, dallying and beauty)—whether one is on vacation or not.
Of course, that’s the setting/experience that Ellis-Bextor is speaking on when she alludes to being a straniera in a strange (to her) land, delineating, “Like a phoenix from the ashes/My story’s starting to appear/I’m not afraid to let it all go/Nobody knows me when I’m here/So I relax into the feeling/I find the freedom that I seek/I watch the waves on the horizon/Tomorrow’s holding the same heat.” With “heat,” in this scenario, referring to more than just the temperature, for it’s being away from it all/living la dolce vita that has ignited something within her that had otherwise gone cold.
Having her joie de vivre (to incorporate a French expression into the mix as well) rekindled is manifest in the accompanying visualizer, during which she appears in a series of “photobooth-style” images (indeed, the photobooth motif is the crux of her album cover for Perimenopop). Wearing a gold beaded dress with “cheerleader pom-pom” flourishes on the sleeves (that is, when she’s not alternating to an equally as “New Year’s Eve-ready” white frock with a turquoise coat [which also looks like it’s made of pom-poms]), Ellis-Bextor radiates the jubilance that can only be achieved through truly appreciating (and living) la dolce vita. And oh, how she does, diving into the chorus that proves as much: “Dolce Vita, dolce vita/Where the sun won’t go down/And the air’s forever sweeter/A taste of how it could be now/Dolce vita, dolce vita/I wasn’t ready to belong/Funny where a day can lead ya/Now it’s all I ever want.”
Because, yes, it’s true, once a person experiences a taste of the sweet life, going back to such banalities as shopping at a big-box store or working in a cubicle become especially painful (and, as Marcello Rubini [Marcello Mastroianni] from La Dolce Vita would say, “A man who agrees to live like this is a finished man, he’s nothing but a worm!”). Of course, such a fate would never happen to a woman like Ellis-Bextor who, at this point, has been a “jet-setter” for ages, traveling the world and experiencing the sweeter side of it that so few get to enjoy.
However, to ostensibly “give back” to the population (apart from the Italians, who already revolutionized this concept that a person—even an “ordinary” one—ought to live well) that must suffer in lusterless silence without ever understanding what la dolce vita truly means, Ellis-Bextor provides this song. Best experienced with an Aperol spritz as you sit on your shoddy lawn chair next to a jank-ass kiddie pool. The closest many will ever get to the kind of scene Ellis-Bextor is painting here.
