Song of the Day — August 6
“Wrong” — Maty Noyes
“Wrong” — Maty Noyes
If there are two things we know about pop music, it’s:
It should have a universal appeal and a good hook.
The songwriter has to have been in love at one point.
The rest of a pop song’s particular DNA is up for grabs.
Maty Noyes’ new single “Wrong” ticks both of those boxes.
The native Mississippian began taking piano lessons, but soon switched to guitar and was writing her songs within a week.
By 16, she made her way north to Nashville. Presumably, using a fake ID to play open mics around town and not necessarily to drink. After cutting her chops in “Music City,” she went west, to Los Angeles, which seems to suit her just fine:
“I moved to LA because, with what I do, I know that if I wanna go really big, I should probably be there. And I love the weather, obviously, and just love LA.”
At 18, Maty’s big break came in 2015 when she laid down vocals on The Weeknd’s track “Angel” off what would become the platinum, award-winning album Beauty Behind the Madness. She also contributed the song “Haunted” to the soundtrack to the American remake of The Secret in their Eyes.
Later that year, she provided lyrics and vocals for “Stay,” the fourth single from Kygo’s album Cloud Nine.
It seemed as though the Maty Noyes train was departing the station.
Noyes released two EP’s Noyes’s Complaint in 2016 and Love Songs from a Lolita in 2018. Can’t help but wonder if there is a literary influence working on her — are these titles nods to Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint and Nabakov’s Lolita?
By 2019, her song “Boundaries” was selected by Celine Dion and included in the Japanese and Deluxe Edition of her “comeback” album, the hugely successful Courage.
Eschewing the traditional industry norm of releasing a full-length album, or even an EP, Noyes just dropped her single “Wrong” in July.
“Wrong” originates from the most dreaded words spoken in the context of a relationship, “I think we(I) need some space” sometimes worded as “We (I) need a break”:
There’s nothing really wrong with you, wrong with me
We just need to take some time to find out and see
If there’s something wrong with us
I need to know
Love and many matters of the heart are messy things. And sometimes that time apart is needed to save any future ramifications …when it may be too late:
We owe
Owe it to ourselves
To do what most people ignore
Push it down for years until they hate each other, each other
And move on to another lover
According to Maty:
“‘Wrong’ is trying to see the bright side of the break-up. For me, the true meaning behind ‘Wrong’ is that there is nothing wrong with us, but recognizing that if something is wrong with ourselves as individuals we have to work on that before ever having a chance together.”
Taking a moment to pause and self-reflect is never a bad thing.
Wrong
I know that I’m on a roll now
Yeah I did the work
Committed to my best self
I’m not a player, player
I can’t be the one to save ya, save ya
And that’s just how I feel
That’s how I feel
Gotta keep it real, keep it real
It’s not what you wanna hear
You wanna hear
But I need to heal
Yeah
There’s nothing really wrong with us
Promise I don’t love you less than I did
Nothing I would change in us
It just is what it is
There’s nothing really wrong with you, wrong with me
We just need to take some time to find out and see
If there’s something wrong with us
I need to know
We owe
Owe it to ourselves
To do what most people ignore
Push it down for years until they hate each other, each other
And move on to another lover
But it’s all a lesson to be learned
Every time you love it’s gonna hurt
Maybe we could be better than before
But I need to be sure
There’s nothing really wrong with us
Promise I don’t love you less than I did
Nothing I would change in us
It just is what it is
There’s nothing really wrong with you, wrong with me
We just need to take some time to find out and see
If there’s something wrong with us
I need to know (I need to know)
Promise I had feelings but I lost em
Baby, I can’t lie no I still got some
Like yea (yea) yea (yea) yea (yea) yea (yea) yea (yea) yea (yea)
First I starting feeling like I lost him
But now I know that I’m about to blossom
Like yea (yea) yea (yea) yea (yea) yea (yea) yea (yea) yea (yea)
There’s nothing really wrong with us
Promise I don’t love you less than I did
Nothing I would change in us
It just is what it is
There’s nothing really wrong with you, wrong with me
We just need to take some time to find out and see
If there’s something wrong with us
I need to know (I need to know)
Promise I had feelings but I lost em
Baby, I can’t lie no I still got some
Like yea (yea) (repeat)
Lyrically, Maty sings with the playfulness of the ingenue. This coy singing belies both her age and the seriousness of the topic. While she falls into the pop sound popular today, the lyrics are infectious enough, and the subject matter undoubtedly has a universal appeal.
Musically, the song struggles a little. It sounds as though every “instrument” is programmed and not played. Sometimes that’s less noticeable than others, and sometimes it works. It’s not that it doesn’t work on “Wrong,” it’s just noticeable.
Additionally, the song seems to be heavily mixed on the high-end, which may be a result of compression for streaming services and the like. Neither is that detrimental to the song …but it does take away from the potential emotional impact of the lyrics.
Maty Noyes has already made some tremendous strides in her young career, and “Wrong” is undoubtedly a step forward. To paraphrase Pat Benatar, “Wrong” is another notch on Noyes’ lipstick case.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.