Songwriting News: Game-playing and infectious pop in equal measure (2024)

Gatlin seems to have contradictions to deal with.

She’s with someone and she likes them, you know, in that special way… until they reciprocate. Then she’s not so sure.

Ah love! It’s a complicated game isn’t it?

Luckily, Gatlin has a supremely catchy song with which to work through her feelings.

As she explains at the start of the song in sultry tones, backed by gently pulsing synth pads:

You never used to drive me home

You never told your friends

Was just a fake name in your phone, your phone, your phone

Now there’s something in the air

Now you’re making plans

And you run your hands through my hair, my hair, my hair

And it’s bad

Ouch! Way to disappoint someone!

She continues:

I fell for the version of you that I couldn’t have

It’s bad

But I think I like you better when

And then she goes on to explain why, but because she’s backed by synth pop as catchy and provocatively insistent as this, you almost forget yourself and just go along with whatever she sings. 

You’re in a club, intoxicated by the lights that are occasionally silhouetting the bodies jumping around and you’re getting totally lost in the song that wouldn’t be out of place on a Stranger Things playlist or in The 1975’s back catalogue. And you’re hearing what she’s saying but for the length of this song, who cares? It’s so catchy, so danceable, that you’ll deal with the heartache tomorrow morning.

So she liked you better when:

When you’re leaving me stranded

When you’re doing damage

It’s a dancefloor filler with a looping lyric – treat me nice and we’re done, but you can’t seem to help yourself because you have feelings for me:

Now something is different

You’re saying you’re all in

But I think I like you better when you’re breaking my heart

It’s lyrically really effective as she swings between feeling something and deciding that’s what she doesn’t want throughout the song. Later on in the song she sings:

And I’m seeing stars

And I never thought it’d get this far

Don’t get all happy when I walk in the room

And make me feel like the only one for you 

‘Cause I’ll get used to it and I’ll get used to you

And if you left again, I’d split in two

In that last line, all of a sudden she’s admitted something new, perhaps she’s terrified of how much she likes this person and the breaking-my-heart-schtick is a safety mechanism, an escape route to save too much damage being done should it all go south.

A really telling and effective lyric in the song, for me at least, is:

Is it really love if it don’t tear you apart

Again she’s questioning whether she should feel love or play games and perhaps giving a cheeky nod to Joy Division at the same time. That line though seems to have more weight, seems to ask more seriously what the answer is.

And all of this game-playing, role-reversal, and potential heartache gets your feet tapping helplessly. There are great, confident backing harmonies in the nicely melodic chorus, separated from the main voice by effectively used reverb and it’s insistent, catchy synthy pop and all wrapped up in just over three minutes.

But there’s no answers by that point. Her potential love is left sweaty and confused on that shadowy dancefloor, wondering where everyone stands.

Perhaps this song is the answer: Don’t think, just keep dancing.

The post “When You’re Breaking My Heart” by Gatlin: Game-playing and infectious pop in equal measure appeared first on Two Story Melody.