Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, Arctic Monkeys return with the lead single for their forthcoming album, The Car.
After the downright silly Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, Arctic Monkeys have returned with “There’d Better Be A Mirrorball,” the first single from their upcoming seventh studio album, The Car (out October 21st). Already, “There’d Better Be A Mirrorball” seems to pick up where Tranquility Base left off, guided by a piano (which has, of late, been Alex Turner’s primary songwriting instrument) and a slow burning trot from the rest of the band. The simple arrangement lends itself to Turner’s languid lines, and allows for a sea of strings to provide a more emotional component to the song’s climax.
Turner, ever the suave, deliberate lyricist, has taken us to the moment in a relationship where things have ended, and all that’s left are the fraught moments of departure on both sides. He takes us to those immediate final moments in the chorus, asking, “So do you wanna walk me to the car/ I’m sure to have a heavy heart/ So can we please be absolutely sure/ That there’s a mirrorball for me?”
It’s a mildly sad, mildly funny line, especially for the lead single of a much-hyped new Arctic Monkeys album — the way Turner hits the word “absolutely” implies a bit of desperation, but the main emotion that he displays throughout is resignation. It’s as if he’s accepted the end, he knows it’s coming, but there’s still a part of him that wishes for a fantastical climax to take the edge off.