Toronto-based producer, film composer, and author Meg Remy anticipates her intuitive and adventurous U.S. Girls album, Scratch It (out 20 June) with a new single ‘Like James Said’, an ELO-styled nugget of AM gold and nod to James Brown about the healing power of dancing alone. Remy’s own lyrical response to Brown’s ‘Get Up Offa That Thing’, the track showcases her great — and characteristically tragicomic — phrasing, notably on the exaggerated pause in the line, “I’m the queen of exercising […] pain”. It was written alongside Rich Morel, adding to his and Remy’s long string of hits together.
‘Like James Said’ also arrives alongside a single shot dance performance, directed by and starring comedian Tom Henry. Henry says:
“When Meg talked to me about making some sort of video about this song that talks about dancing, I had a sudden bolt of inspiration – how about a video about dancing? I don’t know how these ideas come to me.
To me, this character has a story, but ultimately, I just think someone trying to do something well, who doesn’t fully have the faculties to do that, is funny and interesting, and possibly sad – the two and a half things I want to be as a comedian. That’s why I got my dancer friend, Gillian, to help put together this dance piece and attempted to perform it as best I could. I hope, above all else, everyone finds it breathtakingly beautiful, and that I win an award.”
Earlier this month, Remy introduced Scratch It with the release of an epic 12-minute lead single, ‘Bookends’ — a sprawling ballad that pays tribute to Remy’s late friend and former Power Trip frontman Riley Gale, through the lens of Remy’s reading of John Carey’s Eyewitness To History, a historical collection of 300+ eyewitness accounts of great world events spanning twenty-four centuries.
Listen / purchase ‘Like James Said’ here.
Pre-order / pre-save Scratch It here.
