“What I Want” by MUNA, Friday, March 8, 2024

MUNA’s first two albums weren’t exactly uplifting, at least as a whole. Sure there are moments of empowerment, but the glass appears half-empty more times than not with songs about breakups and lost loves. On 2019’s Saves the World, two songs act as companions to a terrible breakup. “Stayaway” is an if/then song, explaining why the speaker won’t go out. She might see her old friends or the friends of her ex and might be dragged back into a bad romantic situation. “Who” is a song that speculates about the person who replaced the speaker. “Who are you singing about now?” Katie Gavin pleads on the chorus.

 WHEN I GO OUT AGAIN… In the fall of 2021, MUNA returned with the bright duet with Phoebe Bridgers, the lead single “Silk Chiffon” from their third and self-titled album. While the other pre-release singles were not as hopeful as the lead single, all of them were more optimistic than the last album’s twin break-up tracks. There was, however, the album’s final single, released with the album, which was so musically different from the previous singles. “What I Want” was also lyrically different from any MUNA track. The ebullient club song feels like an ‘00s Max Martin production. MUNA, for the record, self-produced the song. On an episode of Song Exploder, the group talked about the inspiration behind the song. Taking a synth loop created by Naomi McPherson, singer Katie Gavin took the piece to a Zoom co-writing session with Brett “Leland” McLaughlin. Gavin told Leland, “I want something that’s unapologetic and fun.” Leland encouraged Katie Gavin to go for an uncharacteristic sound and use words for phonetic purposes rather than overanalyzing word choice.

I’M GONNA MAKE UP FOR IT ALL AT ONCE. Both Katie Gavin and Leland, queer artists, in the Song Exploder episode, talked about how the lyrics of “What I Want” were both “pandemic-informed” and a reaction to internalized homophobia. Gavin talks about how her Irish-Catholic upbringing caused her to hold some internalized homophobia. Leland said, “Certain parts of me, out of necessity, needed to be repressed. I spent more of my life not being myself than being myself.” The result is a song that disregards the admonishment of repressive systems and flaunts the gay experience. It’s a club banger, though MUNA explains that none of their band actually parties much. Katie said,  “We’ve had many conversations about ‘what if people think it’s okay to go get fucked up all the time?’” She goes on to explain, “From my mid-20s to—I just turned 30—and that’s been a kind of on and off ‘I’m sober for a while, and I’m not sober. And I think just after testing it out for a few years, I like it more being sober.” Naomi chimes in that the song is “honoring nightlife as having such a fundamental . . .history for queer people.”  Ultimately, the club is a metaphor for being able to let your guard down when you find a community.  It’s hyperbolic. MUNA offered support after the Pulse nightclub shootings. But “What I Want” is a song about escapism everyone needs sometimes.

Read the lyrics on Genius.