It’s been a little over a year since Norwegian queer pop powerhouse girl in red, aka Marie Ulven, unleashed if i can make it go quiet to widespread adoration. She’s topped charts, she’s toured the world. She’s been surprised in a stretch limo by Billie Eilish presenting her with a Norwegian Grammy.
Nowhere to go but up, right?
Celebrating one year of the record, Ulven has brought into the fold a co-conspirator spinning in her own creative orbit — the undeniable Hunter Schafer of Euphoria, here making her debut as a director on “hornylovesickmess.”
It all starts so simple.
A tour bus, its headlights the only companion, on an on-ramp to another highway on an endless journey through any city you can name. Ulven lies alone on the roof of the bus as it speeds along, her eyes closed in silence as wind-blown hair whips at her red glasses and the wry smile of a memory appears on her face. In an instant, a flash of memories stained in chrome filters runs through the frame as we bear witness to a whirlwind romance, charged and tender and free all at once.
Ulven springs to life in the memory. Who among us doesn’t rise immediately at the conjuring of flashes of someone we’ve loved and longed for, scanning the passing skyline in a desperate quest to find some way to make the memory real once more, just for a moment.
Ulven lies in soft pants and hoodie — safe in the cabin of the moving bus — and in her lilting tone sings “it’s been month since i’ve had sex, I’m just a horny little lovesick mess”.
I mean, who hasn’t stared out the window in the same sweatpants the Uber Eats guy has seen every night for a week and thought about the memory that just won’t leave us in peace? Just @ me next time.
The video traces through the feelings of Ulven’s rising fame, her face on billboards and nameless faces staring in from the outside of protective shuttling vehicles and we catch a glimpse of the girl she’s longing for. She runs through the street and is ensnared in red strands that lift her in the haze of her memory and we run the emotional gauntlet of a love that feels too real, intense, in the moment and lustful and tender all at once.
And as Ulven sings “I treated you like trash” twirling in red and smoke, the pain of the memory hits square in the chest. As we pull back from the endless bus, Ulven surrenders to the memory, relents to its presence and stares out into the night one last time. Whispering some great mystery to the window as tears roll in the corner of her eye as the dark fades into focus.
Love it.
Ooh I really like this song! Probably everyone else has heard if this artist already, but I haven’t. Thanks Niko!
I’m so glad you like it!!!!
When I first got on TikTok in 2020, people kept asking creators “do you listen to girl in red?” I had no idea what that meant or who girl in red was but soon found out it was a gay artist and the phrase basically meant “are you gay/sapphic?”