"If U Love Me Now" by MUNA, Thursday, December 16, 2021 [Trigger Warning: Suicide]

Muna's 2017 record About U takes listeners on a rollercoaster of emotion. Unlike their 2019 Saves the World record, About U focuses on the positive and negative of being in love and breaking up. About U doesn't enjoy the near universal acclaim that their follow up has, but album helped to establish the three-piece band of queer musicians on the scene of Alternative dark synth pop. Today the sadness, desperation, and loneliness of "If U Love Me Now" resonated with the bleak December day. The song explores the theme of mental illness and suicide. The singer explores options before telling someone that that person should "just let [her] leave." 

IT'S JUST A HYPOTHESIS I TEST THAT I SHOULD NOT EXIST. A large proportion of the LGBTQ+ community struggle with thoughts of suicide. When singer Katie Gavin sings on this melancholy track, her voice sounds weak and wounded, as if the singer of this song has resigned after her last hope has been dashed. The feeling in this song isn't exclusive to queer life and certainly could be cried over by anyone of any sexuality; however, there's a special level of connection this song can have with queer angst. Many have grown up around religions that condemn our sexualities, and this causes us to feel alienated from our loved ones and, more scarily, from God. Others grow up in supporting families, but struggle with society's acceptance of us. Sometimes societal pressure causes queer people to feel that they need to hit the same milestones at the same time as straights in society. Other times, queer people struggle to get on the same page with other queer people who are also struggling with religious or societal expectations and one partner's struggle drags the other into it. We all want to be the subject of a single-layered love song, but in reality, we don't want to listen to that kind of song. 

I COULD BIDE MY TIME HOPING I FIX IT.  Today I feel sad. Not suicidal sad, but just disappointed. I can't really get into it, but today is the culmination of a very disappointing situation in a place that I thought was safe. I was used by someone in a manipulative plot against someone I care about. While it makes me feel very sad, it devastated this other person. I should put my feelings aside and focus on healing the relationships. I realize this all seems too vague. Is this a high school drama? Kind of. It happened at work, so I can't give concrete details. What I can say concretely is that working for Christian school has inoculated me against organized religion. I am growing more and more fearful that my own job is on the line as I no longer go to church or profess a particular religious view, but I'm starting to care much less about keeping it if the alternative is living open and honest. How could something that used to give me so much joy be used as a weapon to inflict so much hurt? My younger self wants to argue, "That's because it's false religion that everyone is practicing. If only they could see the true source, everyone's life would be better." There's certainly an argument for the improper execution of faith, but 1) faith is subjective to every person's reading of the Bible and 2) certain groups of people seem to always be on the outskirts of the kingdom.  

Read “If U Love Me Now” by MUNA on Genius.

Live :

Lyric Video: