Ignored             Obscured              Restored

One of my favorite songs of 2023 is “Female Lead” by Honeyglaze.

Honeyglaze is trio form South London.  Their calling card is quirky, eclectic indie rock.  Take, for instance, today’s SotW – “Female Lead”.  In this hilarious 2 minute pop song, the protagonist (singer Anouska Sokolow) bleaches her hair blonde because she thinks it will make her look like Madonna (or other famous blonde actresses).  But the treatment goes horribly wrong.  The funniest line is that she’s concerned she let her mother down.

I watched my favourite movie
And thought that maybe I could be
Just like the female lead
So I went out to buy some bleach

I put it in my black hair
And waited for an hour
But when I washed it out
Oh, God, I’ve let my mother down

I look nothin’ like Madonna
More like an ’80s horror film
I’ll have to wear a hat
Until my golden hair turns black

Sokolow’s breathy vocals convey how women are under pressure to conform to a certain standard of beauty.  She has said of the song:

“I was overwhelmed by the state of the world during the first lockdown and constantly being surrounded by bad news. It was a time when people were playing with changing their appearance and I felt incapable of writing anything of any actual importance so I decided to write about something as completely arbitrary as dyeing my hair.  I was inspired by the song ‘Leader of the Pack’ by the Shangri-las and the narrative heavy pop songs that were coming out of the Brill building during the 60s.”

“Female Lead” will be on my “best of” song list for 2023.

Enjoy… until next week.