Opening with the sort of “La-la, la-la, la-la, la-la-la-la/La-la, la-la-la” that Kylie Minogue is known for (obviously on 2001’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”), “My Oh My,” her first single of 2024 in honor of her headlining performance at BST Hyde Park, also mimics another 00s-era track: ATC’s “Around the World (La La La La La).” Which makes sense considering how Y2K-inspired “My Oh My” is with its particular kind of pulsing dance rhythm. Of course, apart from that, the song bears a sound that is unmistakably Tove Lo’s, who features on the track along with Bebe Rexha.
Tove, who co-wrote the single with Ina Wroldsen and Steve Mac (also the producer) centers the theme of “My Oh My” on the zodiac, which is unsurprising considering her Scorpio pride. This most recently made apparent on the cover of 2022’s Dirt Femme, on which she sports a custom-made scorpion tail by Chris Habana in honor of her sign’s emblem. So if anyone knows a little something about asking, “What’s your name? What’s your sign?” (questions that appear on the song), it’s her…not to mention Notorious B.I.G. on “Big Poppa.”
But Tove is generous enough to let Minogue sing those lines in the first rendition of the pre-chorus, cooing, “When you asked, ‘What’s your name? What’s your sign?’/I’m Kylie, it’s Gemini/‘What’s your drink?/Let me buy’/You had me when you said, ‘Hi’/Hi.” As is to be expected, both Tove and Bebe get to perform their take on that pre-chorus by subbing in their own names and signs: Scorpio and Virgo, respectively. Naturally, Tove makes her version of the verse extra Scorpio-y by saying, “Always love a dark room with somebody to talk to/But never ever met someone like you/Hey, hello, I am To-Tove Lo/I’m a, I’m a Scorpio/Yeah, the sexy jealous kind/You had me when you said, ‘Hi’/Hi.” And yes, that last part is very much a “riff” (read: an almost word-for-word repurposing) on the signature line from Jerry Maguire, delivered by Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger) when she tells Jerry (Tom Cruise), “You had me at hello.”
For hopelessly romantic women like the ones in this trio, that statement even holds true for someone they just encountered. After all, like Lana said, “When you know you know.” And sometimes, having another (free) drink helps to really know for sure—in vino (or whatever other alcoholic preference) veritas, and all that.
As for the seamless coalescing of these three elements in the zodiac, this Air/Water/Earth combo is undoubtedly what lends the track its dreamy, ethereal quality (if a Fire sign had been involved, it would have just been a hot mess). One that is emphasized by the single’s starry, Y2K meets psychedelia-inspired aesthetic. A look that certainly doesn’t bend to Fire’s overall vibe.
As for the lush, “love at first sight” (also a Minogue song title) motif of the single, in certain respects, the lyrical content also reminds one of Minogue’s 2023 hit, “Padam Padam.” For, in the same way that Minogue feels a shift in the very beat of her heart (and his) upon encountering this person (i.e., “Padam, padam, I hear it and I know/Padam, padam, I know you wanna take me home/Padam, and take off all my clothes/Padam, padam, when your hеart goes ‘padam’”), so, too, does she feel a shift here, marveling, “Yesterday was just a day/I didn’t know my life was gonna change/Yesterday, light-years away/You came in here, now, nothin’ is the same.” Needless to say, Minogue’s use of the word “light-year” seems deliberate in that she has a 2000 album called Light Years. And while some have failed to see that Minogue, Tove and Rexha have long been light-years ahead of the pop curve, others have known it all along—and can therefore understand the poetic, synergistic nature of this group of women “aligning” to sing such a track. One that is all about a sense of “destiny,” how something can be “kismet.”
So it is that, for Rexha’s part, she adds, “Rush of hands, lingering looks/My name in your mouth, that was all it took/Now, yesterday’s light-years away/You came in here, now, there’s no goin’ back.” To play up the feeling of dizzying, twitterpated lovestruckness, the chorus replicates such sentiments with Minogue’s “la-la” signature being incorporated into the lyrics, “La-la, la-la, I’m like, ‘Oh my, oh my’/La-la, la-la, you keep me up at night/La-la, la-la, I’m feelin’ fireflies/La-la, la-la-la, oh my, oh my.”
While the song title itself might be slightly played, with both Camila Cabello and Ava Max also recently having a single called this (though, of course, Aqua has the true monopoly on it with their 1997 song of the same name from Aquarium), Minogue, Rexha and Tove’s seamless, wool-gathering harmony is what makes this one stand apart. That, and its acknowledgement of just how important zodiac signs are to romantic chemistry.
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