"Back to You" by Selena Gomez

There was a tweet I read a while back that asserted that "You can think Selena Gomez's music is terrible and think 'Love You Like a Love Song' is the greatest song in the history of mankind. People like us exist!" I found it funny because that song is legitimately manufactured and awful yet hyper-catchy and captures a feeling that we've all gone through at some point. I do not fully agree with the tweet because I don't think Selena Gomez's music is completely terrible, even the early stuff. Lately, it's gotten considerably better, which is why I think she's one of the few people who has made the successful switch from Disney start to pop idol. The artists who have longevity are the ones who can consistently transform themselves and still retain the je ne sais quoi which brought them public attention in the first place. It's harder than it sounds, especially when you're not fully in control of the music you're producing.

Recently, she dropped two new singles - (not so) coincidentally, they were released on the first day of Scorpio season. Personally, I think this was intentional because both songs were about the transformation she had to go through to get over Justin Bieber and Scorpio is the sign of transformation and rebirth. Celebrities have been a lot more open about their interest in spirituality, including more woo-woo aspects of the New Age, and astrology in particular has gained a lot of traction in the past year. As much as I like to think I'm a trendsetter, I'm honestly just riding the wave and not resisting what I'm being called towards. The first single, "Lose You to Love Me," was a personal ballad about how she felt so low after their breakup. How she felt she deserved the poor treatment, how she let herself forget her purpose. Really hard, deep stuff that I'm sure isn't easy for anyone to face. And she kept taking him back, because her self-esteem was so broken, she didn't think she deserved better. The second single, "Look at Her Now," is a dance song that celebrates how she's thriving after the train crash of her and Justin's relationship. She mentions that she "dodged a bullet," which she might have. Ironically, Justin Bieber and his wife have been on the defensive, saying Gomez put out these songs specifically to hurt Justin. Hailey Bieber has told reporters that he's "distraught" and Gomez is being cruel by airing out their dirty laundry. But it's art. And he clearly didn't care how much he hurt her when it was happening, so why should she censor the truth about the pain she went through just to make him more comfortable? That's not a man, that's a boy, which is why his mama (oops...wife) is speaking on his behalf. And that's about the extent I'll get into celebrity drama for today.

Obviously, based on her recent power moves, Selena Gomez is now genuinely starting to get over Justin Bieber. However, "Back to You" came out in 2018, after their most recent break up. The song is bittersweet - the melody is fairly upbeat but the lyrics are tinged with a sadness only wisdom can bring about. The message in the song is simple - their relationship wasn't great, it may have even been a mistake, but it's a mistake she would make again in a heartbeat. Every time. That's it. That's the song.

We never got it right

Playing and replaying old conversations

Overthinking every word and I hate it

'Cause it's not me ('cause it's not me)

And what's the point in hiding?

Everybody knows we got unfinished business

And I'll regret it if I didn't say

This isn't what it could be (isn't what it could be)

Let's talk about the video. I'm a Francophile in the worst way, which means I've watched way too many French movies. Most of which were made in the 1960s. Lucky for me, that's the whole aesthetic of this video. Complete with subtitles that don't exactly match the words they're speaking. It has it all - the camera shots filtered through colored light, the chic clothes, the nonsensical meet-cute that spurs the whole video into action. The lyrics of "Back to You" bring to mind a classic Jean-Luc Godard film, "Breathless," in which Jean-Paul Belmondo plays a petty thug whose reckless actions bring about his demise. Throughout the film, he turns to a naive, American love interest, Patricia (played by Jean Seberg), who he doesn't treat all that well but who seems to love him - but she betrays him, partially as a test for herself to see if she really does love him. Belmondo's character has a specific quirk where, when he's thinking, he runs his thumb across his bottom lip. At the end of the movie, as Michel dies, Patricia replicates this same quirk as she speaks the last line in the movie. I've interpreted this as, having fallen in love with this scoundrel, she has taken on some of his traits and, in a way, a part of him will always be with her. In a way, their attraction is ill-fated - they are both enamored with a romanticized image of the gangster lifestyle, which ultimately leads to the tragic end of their relationship (and Michel's life).

In  more light-hearted version of this same plot, the "Back to You" video shows Selena and a Bieber doppelganger meet at a party and she proposes stealing a car. It's all fun and games until there's real consequences involved. That's when the conflict starts. It escalates until he screams at her - "You're too passionate!" And, dear friends, if anyone calls you "too" anything, that's a bad sign. Especially if they say you're "too much" - that just means they're used to not getting much and they're afraid/anxious of not being to reciprocate that. At this point, Selena announces she's going back to the party. Back to the moment when they met. And what does she do? She does it all over again.

Chaos theory hinges on tiny, seemingly insignificant events cascading into each other randomly in order to produce each moment. In a way, it makes the way things are unavoidable. In order to get to this moment - this moment right now - everything had to go a specific way. Otherwise, this moment would be different. Our reality would be different. I try not to think about the "what ifs" because they don't really exist. Right now, those possibilities are dead. I will never be this old or this young ever again. I can't go back and change my major in college. Or where I went to college or even where I was on a particular day. What I can change is how I color those decisions - were they mistakes? Or were they just the best choice available to me based on the information I had at the time? The thing to embrace about this song is she doesn't assert that her feelings are wrong - she just says this is how she feels right now. That's just how it is and she can't help it. She has a lot of compassion for herself in this song and I can image her writing in her journal, one night after it's all over for the umpteenth time, spilling all these thoughts onto a page. I feel [blank] [blank] [blank] (I imagine she says "I feel" a lot because, like me, Selena is a Cancer). No judgement. And thus ends a rather lengthy rant that went in every direction all at once and back again.

"Back to You" Video