If You're Over Me

Album: Palo Santo (2018)
Charted: 6
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Songfacts®:

  • This empowered breakup track is about how trying to stay friends with an ex seldom works.

    Yesterday you said I'm the one
    But now you say you're done
    Stop telling me what I need
    Baby, if you're over me


    Frontman Olly Alexander said: "'If You're Over Me' is about the emotional torture that ensues – meeting up and making out, then breaking up all over again, then making out some more."
  • Speaking to BBC music reporter Mark Savage Olly Alexander admitted Palo Santo is "quite a petty album." He added: "When I listened to it all the way through, I was like, 'Wow, I was so angry!' "But it's good to show that stuff, you know? I think it's human."
  • This was written by Olly Alexander with Steve Mac - the pop mastermind behind such hits as Ed Sheeran's "Shape Of You" and Clean Bandit's "Symphony." The song came about really quickly, but was then left on the shelf as the band were unsure if it fitted in with the rest of their material. Alexander recalled to iHeartRadio:

    "It was done in two hours basically 'cause it just can sometimes happen really quickly, you know? We were, like, 'Does it sound like Years and Years?' We fought over it for like six months, and then finally we all became happy with it. So, it got there in the end."
  • Olly Alexander explained to Genius how this song finds him reflecting on a past romance that went wrong.

    "I was feeling some type of way about my ex-boyfriend. I keep running into these situations where I break up with someone, or the relationship ends, and then I have this extended period that seems to last forever, that seems like maybe we're gonna get back in each other's lives. Are we gonna get back together? You're sending me so many mixed messages. Why are you texting me at two in the morning? I had reached a point where that was at its zenith.

    That's what I want to write about. A lot of songs on the album are reflecting on past relationships, but this one is kind of written from the perspective of having a fight with someone and being like, 'Look if this is over, you really need to just leave. Because this is too much for my fragile heart to handle.'"

Comments: 1

  • Nephillim from 33584Its a shame the back-up dancer do not to appear valued in the video cast list, including on IMDB.
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