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No, not the coffee,Sabrina Carpenters breezy new single.
Is Carpenter simply sayingshesthe espresso or that she gives a specific throw in of espresso to men shes into?
Or maybethe guy shes singing aboutis so hot that she temporarily forgot how grammar worked?
4 on the Hot 100.
But whycantwe stop saying Thats that me, espresso, among the many other odd lines in this song?
When you first heard Espresso, what stood out to you about it?I thought it was cute.
Its fun and lively and very bubblegum pop.
But its a bit more sensual than her other songs.
Thats that me, espresso has burrowed into everybodys head.
So Thats that me, espresso, thats not grammatically correct, right?
The reduplication of the wordthatis there to foster a sense of playfulness, to catch attention.
Byreduplication, do you just mean repetition?Yeah, reduplication means the repetitions of certain words.
She has this power of attracting her boy, to have him wrapped around her finger.
For example, My give-a-fucks are on vacation.
So in this case, you combine them into one word.
That makes me think of another line: I dream-come-trued it to you.
Its not just a phrase anymore, but in this case its being used into one word.
Or I perfumed it from a noun to a verb.
Im not really sure about Mountain Dew it to you in this case.
I was like,Oh, it might be something that can quench someones thirst.
There might be some semantic shift here as well, when the original meaning gets altered a little bit.
I do it for you could mean other things now rather than just soda.
It shows me that she has an untraditional womens role.Im actually a singer.
Im not subject to just the domestic realm.So it shows some power as well.
Then My honeybee, come and get this pollen that can also be interpreted as a sexual innuendo.
Thats one form of female empowerment: to own ones sexuality.
Those often end up being the catchiest lines in the song.
Why is that?Im not really sure.
In 2007, there was this song by Timbaland called The Way I Are.
And sometimes these linguistic features get appropriated.
I think the hooks meaning was very different than when Max Martin meant it originally.
Its specific to how the audience perceives it.
Originally, hit me was made to mean call me.
You were talking a lot about Espresso in terms of empowerment.
I mean, its not a new concept.
A lot of pop artists have done this before: Britney, Madonna, Beyonce, Ariana Grande.
