Charli XCX I Keep Thinking Bout You Every Single Day and Night

As if to keep proving that her creative well can never run dry, Charli XCX wasted no time in parading her “B-side” to “Rock Music,” “I Keep Thinking Bout You Every Single Day and Night.” A title in keeping with something as lengthy as a Lana Del Rey song name (e.g., “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but i have it”). It also resembles The Kinks’ 1964 song title “All Day and All of the Night.” And even XCX’s own “I think about it all the time.” And what she’s thinking about all the time on this occasion is a certain someone that’s gotten her feeling a bit “fluttery.” A close friend, it seems.

Indeed, throughout the song, XCX draws a fine line between the friend and lover dynamic, commencing with the lyrics, “Maybe we could become each other/Like somethin’ out of a Jacques Rivette movie or somethin’ [for it’s no secret that XCX is a fan of Céline and Julie Go Boating]/I wonder if I just want you as my best friend/Or maybe if I’m a really late bloomer” (yes, it sounds like a musing Deborah Vance might have about Ava Daniels during the “Montecito” episode of Hacks). In other words, she’s wondering if she’s late to discovering her “true” sexuality: gay. After all, is being a gay icon really so far off from being plain gay oneself? Besides that, Billie Eilish did make the offer to her on “Guess,” “Charli likes boys, but she knows I’d hit it/Charli, call me if you’re with it.” Better known as, “Call me if you ever start to like girls.”

Who knows, maybe Eilish “planted the seed” and that’s why Charli’s singing, “Now I’m wondering if I maybe could be gay/But come on, look at me, I’m probably not.” Besides that, she’s married to a man now (George Daniel, obviously)—and unless he’s suddenly down for an open relationship, it’s not likely that XCX would be able to “explore her potential feelings” at this juncture.

But maybe, in the end, the nature of this song is a result of the Erupcja influence in her life. The premise of said film bearing many thematic similarities to “I Keep Thinking Bout You Every Single Day and Night” in that Charli plays a character named Bethany who suddenly starts to realize her “more than friends”-type attraction to Nel (Lena Góra) despite being engaged to a bloke named Rob (Will Madden). Yet the prospect of getting married to him feels like a distant memory when she starts to gallivant throughout the streets and clubs of Warsaw with Nel amidst the backdrop of a volcanic eruption “forcing” them to come together in this way.

Such a concept is well-suited to a song like “I Keep Thinking Bout You Every Single Day and Night.” With its sparse but fanciful backbeat (bearing an almost 80s-like sensibility, and once again co-produced by XCX, A. G. Cook and Finn Keane), the sound is part of what lends the track its romantic, whimsical quality. On par with, you guessed it, the style of a Jacques Rivette film (or most any French New Wave film, really). Even if it’s Ingmar Bergman’s Persona that would be more apropos when it comes to a lyric like, “Maybe we could become each other.”

But such a movie isn’t playful enough for XCX’s sensibilities on this track as she continues, “I’ve always wondered if you were actually gay/Or if that’s something you just say for your career.” As usual, it’s a bit of a troll on Charli’s part, for she knows full well that being gay can help certain musicians with their “industry clout” (see: Chappell Roan—until the whole Lollapalooza Brazil debacle). Even so, XCX would never deign to “queerbait” for the sake of more “respect” or appreciation from her fans (especially when she knows how generally worshipful the OG Angels are of her anyway).

As for who she might be wondering about in terms of whether they’ve just been pretending to be gay for the sake of their career, it could be anyone from Aidan Zamiri to Benito Skinner (a.k.a. Benny Drama). Both examples of men in her life she would have even more sexual tension with if they weren’t attracted to men. At the same time, it seems XCX is referring to a female friend in her life—or rather her “persona” is. In any case, when she sings the chorus, “I keep thinkin’ ‘bout you, every single day/I keep thinkin’ ‘bout you, еvery single night/Thinkin’ ‘bout you for every single day/I keep thinkin’ ‘bout you, every single night,” it sounds “in earnest.” Plus, when paired with her “raw” visual accompaniment (once again filmed by Zamiri, who shows up in the reflection of the mirror most prominently toward the end), she makes the “daydreaming” quality of it all feel quite sincere.

As she said of creating the “video,” of sorts, for “I Keep Thinking Bout You Every Single Day and Night” (also shot in black and white like “Rock Music”), “Me n my friend we go to Kyoto we make a movie and a video in a dojo [much to Lily Allen’s probable delight] and sometimes we cry.” Though she appears mostly “all smiles” (you know, by Charli standards) as she mucks about in this strange liminal space somewhere in Kyoto. The only indication that the location is in Japan (and not say, somewhere in the West) being the Japanese “No Smoking” sign that XCX ironically stands next to at the beginning.

She then ambles down the sterile hallway and stops in front of a rather random-ass trio of mirrors hovering above a console table to look at herself (marking the first time Zamiri can be seen looming behind her). Having “gotten that over with,” she glides up a flight of stairs and fucks around a bit on another floor before entering the “dojo space.” A room that inspires her to do some “sexy” dance moves before she takes her long-sleeve white shirt off to reveal her black bra underneath (not unlike the one she wears in the “Rock Music” video). Because, evidently, “thinkin’ ‘bout” this person “every single day and night” has also gotten her feeling a bit sensual, a bit horny.

Either that, or it’s merely the image of herself in the mirror that has her feeling this way, which would be in keeping with XCX’s long-running commentary on pop star narcissism. And yes, it would also just be so Charli (/Leo zodiac sign) if, all along, she was really just singing about herself.