glaive whips out some of his best tricks, both old and new, on his project old dog, new tricks, a deluxe edition of his 2021 all dogs go to heaven EP that adds five new songs! And if you’re anything like us at THP, you haven’t been able to get any of the 13 total tracks out of your head. They show off glaive’s best work to date with a healthy dose of both frustration and polish.
Deluxe is good. Music is good. Life is good. Can’t wait to go out and play these songs live.
glaive
If you haven’t stumbled on glaive’s music yet, don’t worry – we can catch you up! He’s the teenage king of angsty lyrics, creating a distinctive mood on each song he releases and finding clever ways to describe universal feelings everyone is all too familiar with. He also happens to be one of the biggest stars on the hyperpop scene, being a frontrunner for the electronic-grunge-pop fusion genre.
Let’s dive into old dog, new tricks, and see what lyrical tricks glaive had up his sleeve!
“She’s in a red beret in a nice café, the Versace shades hide the tears on her face…”
glaive kicks off ‘1984’ with this bang of a descriptive lyric! We love the contrast he creates by putting the “nice café” and designer sunglasses against tears and sadness. It’s a witty reminder that not everything is as it seems, and nice things don’t guarantee a nice mindset. On a side note, we wouldn’t mind a trip to a nice café and some stylish sunglasses ourselves!
“You never wanted me when I wanted you, like the Capulets and the Montagues…”
If you’ve checked out our books section, you’ll know that we at THP are total lit nerds, and this Romeo & Juliet reference on ‘poison’ made our hearts skip a beat. Juliet’s family, the Capulets, and Romeo’s family, the Montagues, had been feuding for generations before Romeo and Juliet fell in love. glaive uses it to describe the back-and-forth and contempt he felt with the subject of the song, and we think tying in Romeo & Juliet was a great way to explain it.
“Every single person in my life turned to an actor, fairy tales lied, there’s no happily ever after…”
Within just a few lines of ‘bastard,’ you can perfectly understand how glaive is feeling, and this cinematic lyric is a big reason why. We love the whole acting/plays/storybook motif it has going on! The rhyme scheme on this chorus is also ridiculously clever: it rhymes “bastard,” “actor,” “after,” “pasture,” and “laughter.” Try saying that list five times fast.
“You’re actin’ like you won, but it’s your first lap…”
glaive emphasizes the importance of hard work while hinting at the dark side of success in this dualistic lyric from ‘lap #1.’ Funnily, it’s the first track you hear after the ‘all dogs go to heaven (outro)’ steps aside for the deluxe songs to come in! The metaphor of running laps is such a smart way to describe persistence, and it’s such a universal image that anyone can understand the message behind it.
“I’m like Icarus, not trying to increase the dissonance between you and your father…”
The aptly-named ‘icarus’ plays on the Greek myth of Icarus, the son of an inventor who borrows a pair of wax wings his dad made to fly. Unfortunately, he went up too high, and the sun melted the wax, then he fell to his death. glaive modernizes the story while learning from the message – Icarus was too ambitious and didn’t think of the possible consequences of what he was doing, like how the girl in the song might not realize how a relationship with glaive could affect her personal life.
“The invasion of the privacy, I hated it, they hacked my socials, wasn’t vocal, but I faced that sh*t…”
glaive opens up about the more negative side of fame on ‘justlikeu4theimage,’ exploring topics like being in the public eye, getting his profiles hacked, and his fear of a long-term relationship. He really poured every drop of his truth into this introspective anthem, and it’s the perfect culmination of the EP’s main themes. It shows exactly why you need to like glaive for more than just ‘theimage!’
What’s your favorite lyric from old dog, new tricks? Which songs from the EP are dominating your playlists? Let us know in the comments below or buzz over to our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter! And for more sweet new releases you need on your radar, click here.
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