Songfacts®:

• Steve Lacy kicks off his third album, Oh Yeah?, with a big question: after taking beatings from life, is hope still worth the gamble? Instead of repeating the famous old line "Life's a bitch and then you die," Lacy flips it into something a bit more hopeful:
  
  Life's a bitch. And then you live again
  
  Of course, living again doesn't mean starting with a clean slate. As Lacy makes clear in the next lines, survival means dragging all your old baggage along for the ride:
  
  Tragedies and wins
  Breakups with your friends
  Memories of home
  Feels like life is moving on
• The title "Oh Yeah?" never shows up in the lyrics. On paper, "Oh yeah!" sounds like a celebration, but slapping a question mark on the end turns that confidence right into hesitation. When asked about the title by Rolling Stone, Lacy kept his answer short: "The question's important."
• That underlying doubt sets the tone for the entire record. Lacy explained to The Guardian how while 2022's Gemini Rights focuses on a rebound, Oh Yeah? circles back to the volatile on-and-off relationship before it, a breakup he was still untangling six years down the line. Looking back, it was the raw vulnerability of falling in love before getting hurt that stayed with him.
  
  "Getting with someone before you can even really get hurt was inspiring in many ways. Trauma is memorable," he said. "I realized how big my ego had gotten about love."
• Lacy recorded much of the album in Paris, cutting out coffee and weed halfway through the sessions to clear his head. "I'm ready to speak my mind," he told Rolling Stone.
• Movie fans will recognize the track from the end credits of Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026). It fits Peter Parker's journey to a tee, a reminder that picking yourself up after hitting rock bottom is rarely easy, but it's the only way forward.