After years of battling with an existential crisis, Baby Queen has come up with a solution, and it’s the better for the rest of us who still can’t wrap our heads around our existence. The answer? “We Can Be Anything.” That’s a whole lot better than 42, don’t you think?
Since listening to Baby Queen’s “Medicine,” I’ve been in awe of her unique sound and dark but meaningful lyrics, and in “We Can Be Anything,” she faithfully outdid herself, and no one is her competition. In the song, Baby Queen tells the story of how she learned some wise take on our existence and passed it on.
“I was crying at a party / Which is not unusual of me / I was sitting all alone / I heard somebody say, “Hello” / I looked up to see a girl,” she sings, going on to relate the conversation she has with the girl, which ends with her finally agreeing with her. The second verse is a contrast to the first verse as she changes the tone from receiving the knowledge to passing it on. “So I was heading back home / Feeling a little less alone / I was sitting on the train / Mulling it over in my brain / That’s when I saw somebody crying.”
Baby Queen’s logic in older songs has been kind of, what will I say, defeatist? For example, “What doesn’t kill you makes you wish that it had.” So it’s a nice change of pace for her to be on the positive side. Not to say that her other songs aren’t inspirational, because sometimes all you need is to feel understood in your pains.
In a statement, Baby Queen talked about the inspiration for the song, saying, “I’ve been having a prolonged existential crisis for the better part of the past 5 years and would consider myself to be a nihilist in many ways, which has made being alive quite bleak at times. I think human beings really crave purpose but there is ultimately no clear-cut reason we’re here and if there is one, we’re just not intelligent enough to figure it out.”
“Despite it all, life is beautiful and i think our lack of purpose and our insignificance gives us the greatest level of freedom. Society, culture, rules, laws – these are all constructs. I like to believe that as long as you’re not hurting people, you do have the freedom and the prerogative to do with your life what you will. That’s what this song is about: non-confinement and non-conformity in the face of what is essentially absurdity. I just want people to listen to it and feel free – because they are free.”
The accompanying music video pays homage to her single, “Dream Girl.”
