Comedian Bo Burnham released his latest work, “What”, and it’s absolute genius. It’s far more deep and mature than “Words Words Words”, and still appeals to the younger fan base that digs him for his dirty jokes and gross humor. However, after watching “What” a few times, there’s one song in particular that sticks out. Burnham has a beautiful singing voice, and it really shows in “Repeat Stuff”. The song has incredible lyrics, a powerful message, and is all summed up into a hilarious tune.
“I love your heart and you’re so smart, ’cause you gave away it..I love your sis’ I love your dad I love your mum but more than all of that I love the fact that you are dumb enough to not realize everything I’ve said has been said before in a thousand ways in a thousand songs, some with the same four chords.” The tune is about love songs and how they’ve changed and it’s basically mocking them. It opens strong and continues to resonate brilliance.
“I also hope that you don’t see through this cleverly constructed ruse designed by a marketing team cashing in on puberty and low self-esteem and girls’ desperate need to feel loved.” Harsh, but true. It’s taken so long for someone to say it, but all these sugary lovey pop songs are all the same exact song that’s been sung all along, just by a new face and a new ‘brand’.
He switches gears in the second chorus with, “I need to make every girl think this song’s about her just to make sure that they spread it like the plague so I describe my dream girl as really really vague, like ‘I love your hands ’cause your fingerprints are like no other, I love your eyes and their blueish brownish greenish color, I love it when you smile, that you smile wide and I love how your torso has an arm on either side.'” It’s bringing up how incredibly generic and meaningless love songs are. They’re made to satisfy the media, not have real meaning.
“I’m in magazines full of model teens, so far above you so read them and hate yourself, and pay me to tell you I love you.” That’s all a lot of musicians are. They’re getting paid to appease a target audience.
The song is incredibly catchy and I’ve caught myself singing it on more than one occasion, specifically the “repeat stuff” chorus; it parallels how dumb songs on the radio get stuck in your head because the words are so simple and generic. It’s extraordinarily clever, and shows a lot of growth both as a comedian and writer in Burnham.
Hopefully this song brings things like the ridiculousness of the generic music industry to light. It was meant to open people’s eyes and have them realize exactly what’s happening around them, but in a lighthearted and silly manner. And boy did he accomplish that.
“We know it’s not right, we know it’s not funny but we’ll stop beating this dead horse when it stops spitting out money.”
