This
2025 song by
ingenue artist PinkPantheress is
ostensibly about using
marijuana, but intentionally left ambiguous aaaand (subject to
interpretation), possibly about having
sex (while on drugs) as well as, possibly in exchange for more drugs.
The song makes it very clear from its opening lines that the
person Pink involves herself with for this
purpose is new to her:
My name is Pink and I'm really glad to meet you
You're recommended to me by some people
....
Oh, what's your name? I don't know what I should call ya....
Of course, the key point of the song is in the lines:
Oooooooooh is this illegal?
Oooooooooh it feels illegal.
This really gets to the heart of the
fuzziness of modernity as to questions of
sexuality and
recreational drug use, and perhaps the casual exchange of one for the other. The sense that the song is about the latter is best conveyed in the chorus:
One after one, now you're sittin' on my bed
Then, later on, we can talk on it instead
Two into one while you're sittin' on my bed
Then, later on, I can feel shame in my head
"Two into one" especially could invoke the sort of unity of souls which comes with recognition of one another's divine essence. Or it could just be
shagging. It's probably shagging, the making of the proverbial "
beast with two backs." Shame would not seem to be an
emotion arising simply from the doing of drugs, and probably not simply from the having of sex stirred by spontaneous
attraction. And another line which does not seem like it would make sense under modern sensibilities if it was simply about the drug use:
As long as you don't tell all your best mates
One other clue is that earlier in the song, right after the introduction of the characters, Pink adds "Here's twenty for ya." The singer being a Brit, this would be twenty pounds, but that's not plenty different from twenty dollars in the Twenty-twenties, which means, given modern drug economics, it's not a lot to be paying for some drugs. And yet the last non-choral verse in the song is:
I think I smoked enough loud to reach the both of us
But tell me why my heartbeat is in a rush
"Loud" being another word the kids are using for marijuana these days means that the singer probably smoked quite a bit more than that twenty pounds worth of the stuff (though not, of course,
twenty pounds avoirdupois of it), but enough that she'd have to have given something more in payment.
In one interview, the songwriter herself explained, "At first, it was actually about using a male
escort. And then I was like, 'This is a bit
ridiculous, because I've never done that.' So I'm going to kind of leave it up to the listener to figure it out but it ended up being about buying weed."
Intended or not, then, the sense of a sexual element as part of the commercial exchange may simply be left over from the original
thrust of the song.
And
here is the video you'll be wanting to watch, which weirdly seems to have the drug dealer be the one to be experiencing the crazy drug trip.
For IRON NODER XVIII: NEGLIGENCE IS THE RUST OF THE SOUL