Summer is here, and while things happening in the world might put a damper on some parts of it, people still crave warm tunes to dance to. Enter Charlie Puth, who just released “Girlfriend,” his first single of the year. The track keeps the proceedings relatively minimal on an instrumental level, letting Puth’s falsetto vocal harmonies do the heavy lifting. That said, Puth’s choices of synth and bass give the tune a nice dose of head-bobbing funk.
Puth has been teasing the song since as far back as April, when he started periodically tweeting “GF” and varying forms of those two letters. He also spoke about the song in a recent Instagram Live session, saying, “Every time I put out a new song, I always like to think of it as a little bit of a risk. […] I always get super nervous and lose sleep before I put out a song, and this is what’s kind of happening now with ‘Girlfriend.’ […] I think this is like one of my favorite songs I’ve ever made, and one that I’ve been sitting on for a really long time and just kind of perfecting the production and the vocal production over the year. I truly love this song more than anything. […] People are going to wonder what the message is behind it, like every song I put out, and there is a message behind it, but I’ll leave it to you. The whole intent is for you guys to relate to it at the end of the day. […] The meaning behind the song is buried in the melody and the chord changes, and it’s a very blunt lyric.”
gf
— Charlie Puth (@charlieputh) April 27, 2020
Puth is right about the lyrics being blunt, as he sings in the straightforward chorus, “Baby, would you ever want to be my girlfriend? I don’t wanna play no games / This is more than just a phase / Baby, would you ever want to be my girlfriend? / If you want it, let me know / We could make this official.”
Listen to “Girlfriend” above.
