As the only one left in the 2006 car trio (a.k.a. “the summit” that defined a decade) to never really get “justice” after the way she was treated in the 00s for simply being someone youthful with a large bank account, therefore able to party at an optimal level, Lindsay Lohan’s influence has cropped up somewhere unexpected: a GAYLE video. Following the success of her hit, “abcdefu,” which has mirrored the path of Olivia Rodrigo’s “drivers license” in terms of giving her an unexpected and meteoric ascent, GAYLE doesn’t want us to pigeonhole her as a one-hit wonder, therefore choosing to present us with her second proper single, “ur just horny.” Which, yes, feels decidedly 2007—you know, like when Katy Perry’s “ur so gay” was released. In some sense, the theme of GAYLE’s song is on par in terms of lambasting a dude for being a massive disappointment.
Perry, too, was still transitioning out of her “rock” phase when “ur so gay,” um, came out. Because it would seem use of the word “you’re” as “ur” makes a song title that much edgier, at least by 2000s standards (a decade, as we all know, that has made a huge comeback in its “retro” capacity). And, although GAYLE wasn’t even born yet when Mark Waters’ version of Freaky Friday hit movie theaters in 2003, there’s no denying a certain Anna Coleman (Lohan) influence within the frames of the “grungy” “ur so horny” video. Giving Cruella a run for her money with her two-tone hair aesthetic, GAYLE also seems to understand what Ava Max did about branding oneself: make them remember your hair. While GAYLE has many sonic similarities to Olivia Rodrigo’s style (herself an amalgam of everyone from Taylor Swift to Alanis Morissette), there’s something slightly less “precious” about her approach to angst. And maybe that’s why she sees fit to set the backdrop for this song in a garage that’s very much in the spirit of where Pink Slip—the band Anna is the lead guitarist for—would also rehearse.
Indeed, the song (called “Take Me Away”—not to be confused with the Fefe Dobson single of the same name that also came out in August of ‘03) we see them practicing for their big tryout gig at the House of Blues is in Anna’s garage. That is, before her mother, Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis), cuts off the power to prevent them from continuing to rehearse past six. Because, like GAYLE, Anna is a seventeen-year-old girl just barely out from underneath the parental thumb. Okay, so technically it’s Lindsay Lohan who was seventeen in 2003, while Anna is meant to be fifteen. Which makes Jake’s (Chad Michael Murray) lurking fixation with her all the less appropriate.
Alas, maybe “forbidden-ness” is part of the desire to seek refuge in obsessing over a relationship dynamic with a boy who might be slightly nefarious. For Anna, that’s the greasy-haired (it was a style, okay?) Jake, for GAYLE, it’s a pointedly Black guy (at least in the music video) who occasionally comes around when she’s not busy talking about what a fuckboy he is for playing foolish games with her emotions. Because she was the one who “showed [him] new sides of [him]self/Took scissors to [his] chastity belt.” Alternately known as: she allowed him to use her as a “test run” for sexual experience—“then you fucked me over/You lied, you lied just a little.”
The song, like “abcdefu,” is rooted in something that actually happened to GAYLE and, in some ways, bears thematic tinges of Billie Eilish’s “wish you were gay” (remarkably, not spelled as “u” instead of “you”), also based on something that actually happened with one of Eilish’s “relationships,” prompting her to bemoan, “How am I supposed to make you feel okay/When all you do is walk the other way?/I can’t tell you how much I wish I didn’t wanna stay…”
Per GAYLE, the lyrics to “ur just horny” came about after “the time I crossed the line in a friendship that I thought was platonic for years. After crossing the line, I noticed that they started treating me differently… I started catching them in little lies and my mind couldn’t help but wonder what else they’ve lied to me about before.” Thus, GAYLE had what is called the breakthrough by writing “ur just horny,” allowing her to come to the “realization that they didn’t want to be my friend, they just wanted to get into my pants—and that hurt. It’s hard to separate platonic, romantic and sexual feelings, and sometimes in friendships the lines can get blurry.” Or, as Eilish said, “The world’s a little blurry.”
For GAYLE, the haze no longer exists after enough instances of being emotionally trifled with, prompting her to accuse, “You don’t wanna be friends, you’re just horny/And fucked up at two a.m. in the mornin’ (a.k.a. “you called me again, drunk in your Benz/Driving home under the influence”). Furthermore, GAYLE announces, “You don’t wanna be my friеnd/You just wanna see me naked again/The morе I get to know ya/The more I wish I never did…/Hit me up just to turn me on/And then turn me down like it’s nothing.” And truly, there is nothing worse than falling for a friend who doesn’t actually reciprocate your feelings. Ergo, the When Harry Met Sally platitude, “Men and women can’t be friends” (even if that’s more than a bit heteronormative at present—it’s still largely true). Why? “Because the sex part always gets in the way.”
As for GAYLE’s own insights on the matter, among the more standout aphorisms in the bridge is, “I don’t fuck and just stay friends.” In fact, that lyric is suitable for a needlepoint. But is “ur just horny” as catchy as Pink Slip’s “Take Me Away”? That’s very debatable.
*Note: If you give a damn about Lindsay Lohan (and 00s pop culture in general), read this book.
