Just as she did for WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA, Slayyyter hasn’t been able to stop herself from releasing a large bulk of the songs from WOR$T MAN IN AMERICA before the album officially comes out on December 4th. Those songs include “Brand New Chanel$” (the “inversion” of “Beat Up Chanel$”), “Crank 2” (the “inversion” of “Crank”), “I Think He’s Got a Girl,” and now, “hot off the presses,” “Hey Boyyy.” A single that starts off with what has now become the “typical” Slayyyter sound: frenetic and frantic. Co-produced by Austin Corona and Wyatt Bernard (just like the previous three singles from WOR$T MAN IN AMERICA), the urgency of the opening notes (which makes the song an easy candidate for being on, say, the Run Lola Run Soundtrack) is betrayed by Slayyyter’s self-loathing/there’s-no-hope-for-this-relationship tone as she sings, “Oh, am I dumb for falling?/I don’t know him well, but I’m crawling.”
Showcasing this sense of insecurity even though, in the accompanying video (as usual, directed by Slayyyter herself), she finds herself in Paris. This much instantly made clear to those who recognize the city’s signature sky and architecture style that Slayyyter reveals with a “from down below, looking up” perspective in the first scene before cutting to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot of Artazart bookstore, located along the Quai de Valmy, just across from Canal Saint-Martin’s famed Quai de Jemmapes. The exterior of Artazart can also be seen as Slayyyter begins to drag a gold-tone skeleton across the bridge in a “cute little” “Parisian-inspired” ensemble. And yes, these scenes must surely have been filmed in the days leading up to her October 18th show at Le Trianon. Subsequently only managing to fulfill two more dates on her European leg of the WOR$T GIRL IN THE WORLD TOUR before cancelling the remaining eleven due to doctor’s orders for vocal rest after incurring vocal cord tears and laryngitis—symptoms of her Courtney Love-esque guttural bellowing on many of the tracks she performs on this tour. “Hey Boyyy,” too, features such guttural bellowing, albeit reserved for the grand finale.
Before that point, however, Slayyyter lets her “softer” side and sound shine through as she waxes poetic about falling hard for a guy (presumably, her now ex-boyfriend, Charlie Shuffler), admitting, “I see him more and I can’t stop blushing” before also adding, “I’m too old to feel more than nothing” (mind you, Slayyyter only recently turned thirty, but it’s as common as ever for people to believe they’re “old” after twenty-five). Having been around the proverbial block more than a few times and, therefore, knowing full well that “getting attached” to a man is usually a huge mistake. So maybe that’s why she’d prefer the company of an inanimate object in the form of this skeleton. Though others might suggest it’s Slayyyter’s symbolic way of announcing that her love is doomed to die (or, as Lana Del Rey [someone Slayyyter so often emulates in ways both subtle and overt] would put it, “You and I/We were born to die”).
Even so, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to have one “last gasp” of romance. Which is precisely what she “breathes in” as she takes this skeleton out on the town in all the usual romantic settings: a café, the exterior of a church, a hotel room and, eventually, a riverboat tour of the Seine with the Eiffel Tower looming behind them (not entirely unlike what goes on in Shygirl’s video for “True Religion”). In between those “playful” and “whimsical” moments, Slayyyter intercuts black-and-white scenes of herself walking along Hollywood Boulevard, as if to counterpoint the idea that this “Parisian jaunt” is closer to fantasy than reality (and, accordingly, Hollywood is the place, they say, where all fantasy is created—especially when it comes to love). Even as macabre as that fantasy might be. Then again, to Parisians, it reads more as a bit of “whimsy” in the spirit of Amélie (think: the “traveling” gnome) than it does as macabre. Maybe that’s part of why she chose to film this concept there (or maybe it was just convenient to her tour schedule).
As she then introduces a scene of herself in a bubble-filled bathtub (and clearly, she loves a good bathtub based on her also incorporating one into the video for “I Think He’s Got a Girl”), she switches to a more “serene tone” for the chorus, cooing, “Hey boy/I got a funny little secret/I get so nervous when you talk to me/If you wanna sit closer/Then come closer, oh/Hey boy/When you’re alone, do you think of me?/I read between every line you leave.”
When the frenetic musical refrain from the beginning returns as the intercutting moments between Paris and L.A. ramp up, Slayyyter announces, “You saw me creeping, yeah, you saw me on the side.” A nod to the “Old Fling$” lyrics, “I see you creepin’, yeah, I see you from the sideline.” Which means that where once Slayyyter felt secure enough in her relationship to degrade another woman (his ex) with this characterization, she now uses it on herself, experiencing what it’s like to be not so secure at all in the relationship (as it turned out, she would have been right to feel that way). And also to liken herself to a creepy stalker sort with the level of obsession she had when she first met this person.
That kind of limerence-driven obsession also manifesting during the bridge of “Hey Boyyy,” when Slayyyter seems to channel her inner Gwen Stefani with vocals that sound just like her as she proposes, “You can watch me do my makeup/Breakfast when we wake up/Play you all my favorite songs/Twirl around my bedroom/Till you have to go home/You don’t have to go home/Till you have to go home/Mm, you don’t have to.” And, by the way, with suggestions like these, one has to ask: is it a boyfriend she wants or a gay and/or teenage girl bestie?
Saving the best for last in terms of production value, Slayyyter rounds out the video with her tour of the Seine on a small private boat with the skeleton as she sports a sailor-inspired outfit. However, the true final scene finds Slayyyter in a “red room” (a.k.a. the room is lit in red) as she repeats “hey boy” for the final portion of the song, toggling back to the kind of “Courtney Love vocals” that led her to cancel the remainder of her European tour, screaming the words in the spirit of other songs from WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA (including “Yes Goddd,” which is also spelled with an extra two letters like this particular track). And as she screams at the skeleton, the “whimsical romance” factor transforms into something more sinister. Something more hostile. But hey (boyyy), she still makes the case for visiting Paris with an inanimate lover. Besides, men get away with agalmatophilia all the time, so why shouldn’t Slayyyter?
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