Based on the pair of singles from A Matter of Time that Laufey released prior to “Lover Girl,” “Silver Lining” and “Tough Luck,” it’s clear that her latest is designed to represent the “honeymoon phase” of a relationship (with “Silver Lining” being more “still in the beginning but not quite honeymoon” era and “Tough Luck” being outright “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”). Accordingly, its placement on the forthcoming album as track two reveals there’s a certain trajectory from that “lovey-dovey” point that eventually takes listeners to a song like “Tough Luck” (at track ten), a Taylor Swift-meets-Olivia Rodrigo-esque verbal assault on an ex who turned out to be a “tragic as fuck” arsehole.
Though it’s the polar opposite of “Tough Luck,” “Lover Girl,” too, has its Swiftian influence in terms of the lyrics. And, after all, Swift has an album and a song called Lover (/“Lover”), making her, in some sense, the OG “lover girl” (even though she’s often more known for the songs that “take shots” at the exes who have wronged her). Not to mention the chanteuse with the least issue being as cringe as possible when the object of her l’amour is on her good side. Hence, telling him (back when the “him” was Joe Alwyn), “Can I go where you go?/Can we always be this close forever and ever?/And ah, take me out, and take me home (forever and ever)/You’re my, my, my, my/Lover.” But, once again, she has a bit of competition in Laufey, who expresses similar “gushiness” on “Lover Girl.” Particularly the earworm-y chorus (even despite the bossa nova/“The Girl From Ipanema”-like “beat”), “I’m in a reckless fever, lovestruck girl, I’d tease her/Thought I’d never be her/Quite the job you’ve done on me, sir/You’ve been hosting parties in my mind/I’m working overtime to have you in my world/Oh, what a curse it is to be a lover girl.”
As for this “curse” she speaks of, in conversation with Zane Lowe, Laufey mentioned that, indeed, the song is inspired by whoever that “special someone” in her life currently is (someone that many have speculated to be a “mere mortal” named Charlie Christie). A man (or manchild) that’s gotten so close to her that when she went on tour (presumably The Bewitched Tour) and had to be as far away from her “one true love” as Tokyo, it gave her feelings that were simultaneously giddy and sinking (sort of like how Charlotte [Scarlett Johansson] in Lost in Translation also felt). For, on the one hand, she’s happy to be touring in Asia, but on the other, she’s crestfallen to be away from her beloved. Which is why she did, in fact, sit down and put pen to paper about her emotions, coming up with the verse, “Forced to get creative, wrote my feelings down/The independent lady in me’s nowhere to be found/I can’t wait another day to see you/How embarrassing to be this way.”
On that latter sentiment, Laufey told Lowe, “It’s kind of like, ‘Oh I’m becoming this person that I used to make fun of’ and it is a love song, but I’m kind of talking about how being in love is a bit of a curse” (ergo, “Oh, what a curse to be a lover girl”). Other overt hints about that time and place in her life include, “This skyscraper’s causing vertigo/The countdown begins in Tokyo” (“vertigo” and “Tokyo” being two words that have been begging to be rhymed, but clearly no one thought to until now). Because not only was Laufey on tour in Tokyo when she wrote the song, but she also said she was feeling dizzy (i.e., vertigo) and excited, in addition to realizing, “Now I have to deal with touring and missing someone so much… This is such a curse to feel this much, to cope with it.”
But there are so many things in life that can be both a blessing and a curse. Not least of which is falling in love. A phenomenon that, yes, at the outset makes one act a fool. A teenage-level fool. Hence, Laufey’s use of the line, “I wait by the phone like a high school movie.” This lyric, once again, channels Swift singing (on, what else, “So High School”), “I feel so high school every time I look at you/I wanna find you in a crowd just to hide from you” (that’s right, Swift is not one to be out-cringed).
In the accompanying lyric video (not to be confused with an “official visualizer”?) for “Lover Girl,” brief scenes of Laufey holding a flower in that way that suggests she might start to play the “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not” game add to the wistful, yearning vibe of the track. One that carefully toes the line between those two adjectives and all-out schmaltz (e.g., “Dream at the shows, you’ll come runnin’ to me/Think I see you in the wings, God I’m hallucinating”). Something that Laufey deftly evades with her sense of self-awareness in the chorus.
A chorus that is certainly less uncomfortable than Swift’s “Lover” bridge, “Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand?/With every guitar string scar on my hand/I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover/My heart’s been borrowed and yours has been blue/All’s well that ends well to end up with you/Swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover.” Laufey swears the same. Just in a much jazzier, breezier manner.
