Despite her moniker, Canadian songwriter Meg Remy hasn’t recorded an album in the States since her Go Grey era circa 2010 when U.S. Girls was known for lo-fi, borderline-drone noise-rock recordings. Since then, Remy’s done a full 180, with a series of increasingly vibrant electro-pop records culminating in the polished pop-soul sounds of 2023’s Bless This Mess, a record that feels spiritually descendent from Prince and the Minneapolis sound of the mid-’80s. For her recently announced ninth album, though, Remy returned Stateside to record Scratch It with a full band she’d previously collaborated with that included guitarist Dillon Watson and The Raconteurs’ Jack Lawrence, among other artists plucked from Nashville’s scene. As Remy puts it succinctly to us, “Nashville loves to boogie!”
After releasing an epic, 12-minute lead single inspired by the life and legacy of Power Trip vocalist Riley Gale, U.S. Girls returns today with another homage of sorts, with the title of “Like James Said” referring to James Brown’s command on “Get Up Offa That Thing.” The boogie-centric single lyrically riffs on the near-homonym of “exercise” and “exorcise” while the instrumental takes ELO and Bootsie Collins as influences. Naturally, given its streamlined, pro-dance messaging, the accompanying video consists of little more than comedian Tom Henry exorcising his own pain. “When Meg talked to me about making some sort of video about this song that talks about dancing,” he explained in a press statement, “I had a sudden bolt of inspiration—how about a video about dancing? I don’t know how these ideas come to me.”
Check out the video below, and read on for a brief Q&A with Remy wherein she explains that one of the song’s goals was placement on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Scratch It drops June 20 via 4AD—you can pre-order it here.
Was that the initial idea-seed for the song?
The initial seed was the idea to write a song that was almost like a monologue coming from the mouth of someone who is being hounded on the dance floor. I always hate when I just wanna dance alone and do my thing and, all of a sudden, someone is grinding on me without invitation or encouragement. Overall, though, it’s an anthem celebrating those moments when you really do lose yourself on the dance floor and it’s therapeutic and euphoric and ancient and present and futuristic all at the same time!
ELO is mentioned in the press release, but were there any other musical touchstones you brought to the band before recording this track?
We definitely talked about Bootsy Collins in relation to this song. And my friend Basia is always telling me that I should collaborate with RuPaul, so I think that’s how the “Stretch, move, pose, groove" chant got in there. Fingers crossed this gets on Drag Race.
How did the concept for the video come about? How did you land on Tom Henry starring in it?
Tom Henry is one of my favorite comedians and performers. We worked on a video, like, 10 years ago for the musician Homeshake, and I always had it in my mind to try and work with him again. I sent him the album, he dug this tune, and had the idea to film himself dancing to it. He wrote me one random day months later being like, “I am filming this tomorrow,” and then he sent me the final finished thing. I was blown away. One continuous shot of humanity!
So far, both of the singles from the new album pay tribute to (vastly different) musical icons. Was this a conscious decision? Does it seem related at all to writing these songs in a city with so much musical history?
Not conscious at all, but perhaps unconsciously informed by returning to America to make an album for the first time since 2010—and, you know, we love our idols down there. I do love proper names in songs, though, and songs as gateway drugs. So perhaps I was trying to do that: leave some breadcrumb trails, hoping some unknowing teenager finds James Brown or Riley Gale.
