“Perfume” is the fourth track on Lovejoy’s 2021 EP ‘Pebble Brain.’ The song is about an ex and how the singer is not able to move on from her even though she has.
The ‘Pebble Brain’ EP follows the debut EP ‘Are You Alright?’ by the British band Lovejoy. The band consists of four members, Wilbur Soot as the frontman and lead singer, Joe Goldsmith as a guitarist, Ash Kabosu who plays bass, and Mark Boardman who is the band’s drummer. The ‘Pebble Brain’ EP contains seven tracks and was released on October 14, 2021, after being delayed for several months.
There is a general wisdom that ‘nothing good happens after 2 am,’ and the context of this song is based at 3.45 am, and to make matters worse (or better… never mind, definitely worse), the singer is with his ex-girlfriend. What does an ex-couple do with each other at 3.45 am? Nothing good for their future, for sure!
Listen to “Perfume” by Lovejoy
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Lovejoy “Perfume” Lyrics Meaning and Song Review
In the first verse of the song, we come to realize that the singer is sitting with his ex-girlfriend talking about each others’ life. The girl has moved on (or at least it seems that way) and talks about her new boyfriend. She calls him the ‘one.’ But the singer has doubts. He tries to find faults about this new guy, failing to do so, he resorts to null criticisms such as not liking his eyes, how bad his haircut looks, and even distrusting their name. What all this says is that the singer has not moved on.
Wilbur Soot knows that he cannot be even mad at her. He left her heart on standby and she is not one who deserved that. So she moved on to better prospects and he could not.
In the chorus of the song, the singer seems to tell off policemen. When she talks about her ex-boyfriend being a policeman, Wilbur says that she needs better standards in her boyfriend-picking genre. The singer fails to see (or maybe does not mind) that he is also an ex-boyfriend of this girl. Even he did not treat her right, so what right does he have to exclude himself from these boyfriends with better standards?!
In the second verse of the song, Lovejoy sings how this girl fell in love. As soon as they broke up, it felt as if everyone around them were in a relationship. She did not want to be left out. So she resorted to a lifestyle that was not her — a pretender to get into a new relationship. Maybe this is the biggest red flag in her current relationship! He cannot move on from her because she is too nice to him, still. Else, she won’t be spending midnight with him after they broke up.
It’s 3.4 am and she was supposed to be picked by her current boyfriend. He has not arrived yet… Nothing good happens after 2 am…
Let us hear what you think about this song in the comments below. Check out the complete lyrics on Genius.
I think….. I think the ‘you’ is the ex. it’s been so long since I first heard it but I think I just got a different interpretation of the lyrics- the line “I can still smell her perfume” could be suggesting he’s with the ex? and you can fit the other lines around it too, like the “I can’t really blame you”
Ok, if the “you” the singer is referring too is the singer’s ex, the chorus makes no sense. Why would the singer ask the ex if her own perfume rubbed off on her?